It’s Jae Fontane’s Time

“It’s good to know your worth,” Jae Fontane says in this exclusive interview.

“I tend to get in my head a lot,” Jae Fontane, a 19-year-old singer and rapper from Saint Paul, Minnesota told me this week. “That’s what most of my music is about: When I’m in my head.”

This week Jae released “Nothing to Say”, a track in collaboration with the rapper Teez, that reflects the unease Jae feels some days. Jae met Teez while in high school, but the pair connected musically when Teez invited him to open up for Justin Park at his Minnesota show.  “Right now I’m in a really healthy relationship, but most of my music is about when I start thinking about things that might go wrong just because I am very anxious,” he described. “So it’s about what it would be like if things went bad.”

“Nothing to Say” is the latest in a string of single releases from Jae that veer between summer bangers and frank confessions of what goes on in his head. He’s received the co-sign of LA’s K-Town legends like Justin Park, and recently played his biggest show ever at Tyla Yahweh’s Rage At Your Own Risk concert. 

Justin Park and Jae Fontane

The Rage At Your Own Risk show was a large domino behind many that have pushed Jae to work harder. “I wanted to get outside of my comfort zone and give a little more energy,” he said. He brought along new songs for the shows, ones that are more hype than he’s ever released, and he’s hoping to release them soon as part of a singular project. 

Jae’s put off college to pursue this dream, betting that the music he’s writing will eventually break through. But there are signs that point to this happening: He just signed a management deal with Waterwave TV, a company that will promote him and help Jae with the marketing side of his music. And he’s blessed to have several older mentors in the business who can help him navigate following his vision. 

“It means the world to me that a lot of people are looking out for me, especially people I used to be a fan of and idolize,” he said about his mentors. “They were the people I wanted to be like when I’m older but now I get to share the stage with them. That means a lot to me. As another Korean-American trying to make rap music, they give me good advice.”

Jae was born in Korea, but moved to Minnesota when he was young. His identity, as a Korean-American, was something that he struggled with as he grew up in a country that was so different from the one he came from. 

“Growing up in Minnesota was interesting because we don’t have a big Korean population here,” he reflected to me. 

The community that Jae grew up around was the Hmong community, an indigenous group from East and Southeast Asia, rather than a Korean one. “I felt like I had more of that upbringing than Korean,” he remembered. “All my friends ever since elementary school have been Hmong so definitely just going to school and seeing them eat Hmong food or going to the Hmong restaurants or bars influenced me.” He picked up some of the language just by being around his friends. The culture “is like second nature to me now.” 

But having so few Korean influences meant that Jae didn’t learn about his own culture until later in life. “I know a lot about my culture and my heritage but there are certain things that I pick up actually being around a big group of Korean people,” he said. “More just like, characteristics revolving around respect and tradition. That’s something you can’t learn online, you just have to be surrounded.”

But Jae’s childhood in Minnesota was fairly average. “I was just a regular kid who would hang out with my friends, go to the park, play basketball,” he said before adding, “Sometimes I'd get in trouble.” You could regularly find him at the skate park in those days. “I was there eight hours a day, seven days a week,” he said. 

Jae first became interested in music in eighth grade, when his school placed him in a music program. The program wasn’t optional, and it wasn’t one that Jae was interested in. But he learned how to produce music on GarageBand from it, and he quickly wrote his first song. 

Jae was fifteen years-old when he wrote a track called “Internal Bleeding”. That song got some pretty good attention, or at the least, received some high school buzz. But it gave Jae the confidence to continue. “I thought,” he recalled, “Maybe I can do something with this.”

Things started to go wrong his senior year of high school. That year, three of Jae’s childhood friends passed away across a three month span. That experience is still difficult for Jae to put into words. It was only a year ago and the wounds are still fresh. And really, how do you even begin to process losing three of your childhood friends when your life is just beginning? 

He tried to get along as best he could, but eventually he turned to music. “I was on a call with my mentor talking about trying to find myself more through music,” he said. “I was venting to her about stuff I never thought I’d make a song about and then she challenged me to make a song and it became ‘No Map’.” 

“‘No Map’ is the song I’m most proud of,” he told me. He felt humbled at that point because, as he described, he had to completely start over. “I was going through a strange time in my life. I graduated in 2022 and I wrote that song right after graduation.”  

“It was a hard time. That’s why I mention in the song, ‘I got that call and now I’m anxious picking up the phone’ because I remember getting the phone calls during class at random times,” he told me quietly. “So now if someone calls me at a weird time I just feel kinda uneasy.” 

“No Map” describes the pain and confusion we feel when life takes a sharp left turn. And Jae has learned something that many people don’t find out until adulthood: There is no guidebook for this shit. Life cuts fast and hard. We just have to adapt. 

The death of his friends confirmed, though, that Jae had no time to lose. He decided to not go to college and, instead, focus on his dream. His parents, he explained, weren’t totally pleased. “But my parents weren’t as angry as I thought they’d be when I said I wasn’t going to college,” he said. For one thing his mom already saw that Jae could make money from music. Even in high school he was getting paid well for features on songs.

But then something strange happened: In the midst of grieving, Jae was tapped by Teez to open for Justin Park at his Minnesota show. Jae kept it a surprise from everyone, including Justin who he’s known for a year, until the day of the show. 

The show was at Myth, a legendary venue in Minneapolis. That night, Jae performed on the same stage as Prince once did. “I definitely felt more confident in myself because I never envisioned myself performing at Myth,” he said. “Just seeing myself on the same stage as all of these great musicians told me that I’m meant to be here. It gave me a lot of determination that I need to work and perfect my craft because I can’t fumble  opportunities like this.”

This summer, Jae is working on more music. In the studio, he’s gearing towards fusing hip-hop and rock melodies together. And he’s training himself to be a better songwriter. “It’s good to know your worth,” he affirmed. “I feel like I’m talented but I have a lot of room to grow, so I’m very open to that.“ 

The biggest fumble in life, Jae believes, is regretting that you didn’t do something. So, he’s betting on himself and this dream. There’s little room for self-doubt in times like this, but Jae also, importantly, isn’t leaning into anxiety.

“I just remind myself of all the dope shit I’ve done and try to put myself in my younger self perspective,” Jae said then added with some optimism, “I know I’d be geeked out with where I’m at right now.”