TACOMA, Wash. — Nicki Minaj and Rihanna took his inspirational song "Fly" and made it a top 20 hit. Now Will Jordan says it's his turn to fly.
We asked Will to tell his story.
"My name is Will Jordan and I was born and raised in Tacoma, Washington. I'm a preacher's kid. My church was across the street from my elementary school. My elementary school was across the street from my house. I was 7 years old when I began playing drums at church.
Fast forward maybe 20 years I'm a producer, engineer, artist and songwriter struggling to make money , and at the time I had a girlfriend call me and was like ‘Hey, I got some news’, and I was like ‘What's going on?’ and she's like ‘We're going to have a baby’, and “I'm like oh. Great. Yeah. So I was like I'm gonna put music on hold and I'm gonna go back to my old job at the warehouse and she says ‘No. Give it three months and see what happens.’
Within that three months a song that I had written with Kevin Hissink got sent to Nicki Minaj and somehow ended up going on her album.
It's a song called "Fly". So it was crazy hearing Rihanna sing the chorus cuz that was like ‘Wow! That means she heard my voice and learned the part and sang what I sang’.
Literally the month my daughter was born we were first getting our checks and first got our apartment. Now it’s time to take it to the next level as an artist.
My new song is called “In My Feelings”. So this song came from just heartbreak frustration and despair. I was good at music I was good at basketball I was good at making friends and hanging out but I was not good at love . That was just something I struggled with. I was always falling deeply in love and getting heartbroken.
All the places in this video are significant to me in some way. We shot that first scene at the grocery store because that's where I wrote a lot of my songs in the freezer because I always thought if I could sing in the freezer I could sing anywhere not knowing that's a terrible place to sing because it’s bad for your voice.
The Fish House Cafe is a place that's right up the street from the studio. Anybody that means a lot to me,
I take them there. I always want them to try the food because the food is amazing. Wright Park is a park I grew up going to all the time. It's a place where we played basketball. Played a lot of intense games and learned a lot about life and about people and about sportsmanship and teamwork at Wright Park
It's crazy because this feels like a beginning in a way. My story doesn't make sense without Tacoma, and I'm hoping that one day Tacoma's story doesn't make sense without me."
