JBL Emerging Interview: How Marquise Fair went from the ghetto to American Idol & beyond

You’ll likely know Miami-born singer-songwriter Marquise Fair from his stint on American Idol. What might come as a surprise, however, is learning that he’s from a violent ghetto where a career in music would have seemed the goal of the delusional. In this Emerging Headliner interview powered by JBL, Fair reflects on escaping the ghetto, participating in American Idol and risking it all to make music in Switzerland.

“Before I moved to the ghetto when I was 12, I had never experienced much of anything,” Fair admits from his home in Hallandale Beach, Florida. “I had a very sheltered upbringing. I wasn't allowed to have friends, I wasn't allowed to watch cable. I wasn't allowed to go outside my gate. I wasn't allowed to do almost anything but go to church and watch Disney movies. Then I moved into the ghetto.”

With not much life experience and having lived a very sheltered existence, Fair suddenly found himself living with his mother and brothers in subsidised housing in Miami, going from three meals a day and a stable environment to going hungry and feeling unsafe.

“It was overwhelming,” he reflects thoughtfully, adding that music was the only thing that kept him out of trouble. “I was fairly angry every day. I had never experienced being enraged every single day; I was mad at my circumstances and mad at what I had to go through just to go to school. Every day I had to walk. I didn't have money. 

"I went from getting three meals a day and a ride to school with everything I needed to be successful, to no ride to school, no three meals a day. Now I gotta walk to school. I don't have no money in my pocket. I can't even eat. So I was pissed off at that, but at the same time I had to deal with all these aggressive people who were mad at me because I'm smiling, or because I sing.

“Picking up an instrument is not something you do in the ghetto,” he stresses. “Nobody has an instrument. It's just not a thing. We play football in my neighbourhood, and if you're not playing football, then you're probably going to end up in jail or selling drugs or something, because that's pretty much the way you make it out, unless you work for the government or go to the army or something like that. 

"Those are the options for the kids in the ghetto. They're not really prepared to be successful in society from a young age. They're being prepared to be either in jail or playing sports.”

Despite this, Fair found that he was always drawn towards music and singing. He would watch Sister Act 2: Back in the Habit and wish he was one of the kids in the film, which led him to join the school choir and write his own songs.

“I didn't think about being a musician or singing one day,” he says. “I just loved it. I sold lollipops to buy an MP3 player, and once I did that, there was never a time that I didn't have an MP3 player or was listening to some form of music since I was 13 – still to this day.”

The upside of his new living situation meant that he was allowed to go outside and make friends. It was while living in the ghetto that he learned to understand the blues, although he already had developed a love of gospel music from his grandmother, and they often sang blues songs that originated from African slaves.

"I come from strong, resilient people,” he asserts. “They created the most beautiful things while living under the worst circumstances. They created blues and from blues came jazz, rock and roll, soul and r&b. Those are my ancestors that started this. So I started listening to music to get myself out of this new funk. I knew what it felt like to feel safe and content, so I would gravitate towards music that would help me feel the same way.”

Rather than idolising the rap artists his peers were drawn to, Fair found solace in Bob Marley, Coldplay and Alicia Keys. “I wanted positive stuff that made you feel good,” he explains. “In the ghetto I had been exposed to the type of music that was popular to most of the other people. The reason why I didn't get into rap was because when I was young, my elder brother and my cousin wouldn't let me rap with them. So I had a pet peeve against rap,” he laughs.

Later on, a scholarship enabled Fair to study at Florida International University, where at 22, he was attending school, learning to play the guitar and writing songs. He started attending open mics every Tuesday to improve his performance skills. A chance encounter when he performed at an art gallery would go on to change Fair’s life, and would lead him, of all places, to Switzerland. An artist introduced Fair to drummer and producer David Wehren, and they immediately hit it off.

“Your vibe attracts your tribe,” he nods. “It's the frequency that you move on; it aligns you with people who move in that same type of realm. So the artist, Nadia, said, ‘I love everything about you and I want to help you. I know somebody in Switzerland who works with artists from around the world, and I want to introduce you’.”

Fair connected with Wehren and they started to send each other music. After about a year and a half of sharing ideas, Wehren suggested Fair try his luck in Switzerland and offered to help him navigate a career in a new country. An irresistible opportunity in front of him, Fair decided to decline the university position offered to him and to take his chances overseas instead. In order to finance the expensive plane ticket, he busked on the streets and took jobs digging holes, picking up rocks and serving hotel clients. He even sold his guitar.

“Oh my God, it was a lot of sacrifice!” he recalls nostalgically. “Busking was how I was making money playing music on the streets, and it was how I was getting my skills ready, so that way I'd be good when I got to Switzerland. My brother told me that in Colorado, people really tip, and that mountain people tend to be a lot more down to earth and are more receptive to art, so I went to the mountain town, and he was right. 

"Immediately, I'm making $20 an hour playing music on the streets! But then the winter came, and I'm from Miami, so I thought I was going to play through winter. I literally thought that I was going to go and busk while it was snowing outside,” he laughs, shaking his head at the memory.

“I was like, ‘It's all right; it's just snow’. I literally thought I was going to double up and put on my mittens and still go busking. I went out and tried it – my feet froze and my fingers froze, and I literally couldn't play even if I wanted to. I realised I was gonna have to get a job.”

Several jobs later, Fair managed to save a few hundred dollars, and flew to Switzerland. “I bought the cheapest flight, which was $720. The reason it was so cheap was because I had to fly for 34 hours. I went from Colorado to Boston, from Boston to Reykjavik, from Reykjavik to London, from London to Paris, and then from Paris I had to catch a five hour train.”

When Fair finally arrived at his destination, he met with Wehren, who kept his promise and helped the singer-songwriter develop himself as an artist and finance the recording and production of his first album. Compared to where he grew up, Fair found his new Swiss location to be almost indescribable.

“Once I got there, I can't begin to explain…” he trails off. “For somebody that's coming from a pretty gruesome, rough environment, where you have to be tough – literally people die every other day,” he shares as an example. 

“People that I've known that were 21 years old were killed in front of their house because they look like somebody else. Stuff like that happens all the time. When I got to Switzerland, there was not one ounce of that energy in the air. It is one of the best places to live in the world, or the best place I've lived in so far,” he notes.

In 2017, Fair decided to try out for American Idol, which he considers a valuable experience, although one that taught him that he doesn’t like playing other people's music.

“I learned that if I'm going to do something, that I should do my best at whatever I do, regardless of how I feel about the situation,” he considers. “I wasn't feeling the way that they were talking to me on the show. I didn't like the way that if they tell you to jump and smile and be happy, you gotta jump and smile and be happy. I'm just like, ‘I'm not feeling happy, smiley and jumpy’. 

"I'm not with that, because I was raised very strict. I couldn't go outside my yard, you know what I mean? I couldn't have friends outside of school. I'm not going to be under the control of anybody that's telling me to jump and smile and be happy. I'm not being controlled. I just can't do it. I like that about myself.

“Anyway, when I got to Hollywood, I was eliminated. I messed up. I picked the wrong song, and also, I didn't want to give them my all. I wanted to hold on to my best for last. One thing I learned is you always surpass your limits on the spot,” he discloses. “If your best is what you have, don't hold that – use it – and then do better on the spot. I could've done my best work, and then I would've had to come out with something better, and I would've had to push myself, and that would've made me surpass my limits.”

Fair returned to focus on his own music once more, and recently released the single, Better World, featuring an international collaboration with Nima Delnavazi from Iran on the Tar string instrument and Einat Betzael from Israel on backing vocals. In this current climate of division and conflict, Fair wants to bring listeners closer together.

“Bob Marley has a song where he says, ‘There's a natural mystic blowing through the air’, and

I consider what I do to very much be a part of something that already exists, and already has existed, and it continues to exist and grow and transform,” he says. “It's almost like I'm doing my part in a bigger pool of people trying to help uplift and unite the people of the world. The idea of us living together sustainably – the fight started way before I was born and is going to keep going way after I die. 

"I'm just doing my part and the song is a part of the continuation of a bigger thing. The first album I did was Ripple, and the ripple was supposed to create a wave to make a better world. It's one of my most important songs.”

As an experienced busker – in all weather conditions – Fair knows an essential part of any gigging musician’s arsenal is a reliable PA system. He shares that he uses a JBL EON ONE compact portable PA with professional-grade mixer for busking and live shows these days.

“It's invaluable,” he insists. “For somebody like me, the main way that I get my gigs is through busking. I have to be able to set up anywhere that I want and play music loud enough for as many people to hear me, because if there's 100 people there, and 50 of them hear me, perhaps 10 of them are going to tip me, and one of them is going to try to book me. 

"My job is to get to a place where I can get as many groups of 100 coming through. That is not so easy to do unless you have something like the EON ONE, because I literally can go anywhere with it. It has a mixer already built in, it's portable, it has three channels, and JBL is known for having good sound quality. I literally, continuously make money off it, plus I can use it at my gigs as another monitor. 

"I was actually very amazed and surprised about how good the sound quality was,” he remarks. “It got louder and louder and louder, and eventually to the point where I was like, ‘When it starts shaking, that's what you want!’ You plug in, turn it on and play. It's that easy.”

Looking ahead to new music and the possibility of a second album, Fair shares that he already has eight songs ready to go: “We have more people from around the world. There will be blues, there will be reggae, and there will be some rock songs… that's about as much as I can tell you,” he grins.

Photo credits: 1 & 6 Aurelie Ayer / 2,3,4 & 5 Mar Nkosi.