Joshua Rice better known as J Rice is an independent American Conscious Pop and R&B artist. He has released six albums: The Intro, So Close, Phantom Boyz Present: J Rice, 12+, Joshua and The Feels. He has never signed with any major label. He has been a YouTuber since 2011, building two channels: J Rice Productions and Mineworks Animations. Those channels have accumulated over 400 million views, and over 1 million subscribers.
Career
J Rice came from a musical family. His mother sang opera, grandmother played the violin, and great great grandfather was in a 5-piece quartet with his brothers and sisters.J Rice#cite note-interview-1| Josh came on to the scene in 2005 with his first co-produced/written/mixed album "The Intro" with Tyrese Fernandez from Lil T Records where he continued to experiment with different sounds, collaborators, and social networks. He remained unsigned despite production and record deals being offered throughout his career. After one of his songs "Thank You for the Broken Heart" leaked from A&R email and started going viral on YouTube, J decided to focus his energies there, where he would build a following of over 200k subscribers. He later partnered with a small animation channel, and started making original songs and parodies, growing that channel to over 750k subscribers and over 300 million views. In 2016, J started focusing his time on making a new album that would reflect his new found view of the world, and showcase a diverse range of genres. The album Joshua featured these new concepts and some experimental sounds.
Music and collaborations
J Rice is known for his multi-layer solo interpretations as well as cooperation with many online artists like Tyrese ‘Lil T’ Fernandez, Ahmir, Jason Chen, Kurt Schneider, David Sides, the then unknown and the eventual American Idol season 11 runner-up Jessica Sanchez J Rice#cite note-behindthemic-3| and many others. J Rice was also featured in Stella Mwangi's 2011 album Kinandaon the track "Throw Me a Ladder". Mwengi's album, her second, reached number 15 on the Norwegian VG-lista official albums chart. He also did a collaboration with The Piano Guys, singing "More Than Words".
Discography
Albums
2005: The Intro
2008: So Close
2013: J Rice Acoustic
2014: J Rice Mashups EP
2014: 12 and 12+
2015: Songs About Minecraft and Songs About Minecraft
2017: Joshua
2020: The Feels
Mixtapes
2009: HeartBreakerz: The Official Mixtape, Lil T records
Singles
2010: "Afraid of Love" written and produced by Tyrese ‘Lil T’ Fernandez
2011: "Thank You for the Broken Heart" written and produced by Tyrese ‘Lil T’ Fernandez