J crew

“Not
everybody likes everything that I do, but I feel like it gives
everybody a better view of who I am as a person, because I do so many
different things,” said Henderson, who works under the moniker Cameron
J.

Henderson began
making music when he was a junior in high school. He participated in
choir, but motivation from friends pushed him to start producing his own
songs. Good feedback has only made him pursue more.

“I guess the positive response that I get fuels me,” he said.

It’s
been about two years since he began uploading on YouTube; he now posts a
new video each Wednesday. With more than 9,000 subscribers and 3
million views, he posts content that ranges from love songs to
tongue-in-cheek tracks about Pop-Tarts, Pringles and Hamburger Helper.

The music side, however, remains most important to him.

“That
was my first love, and everything else is just kind of part of me,”
Henderson said. “Music is what I’ve been doing the longest, and it’s
really where I want to go with my career.”

Although
blending many genres, his tunes have roots in R&B and soul. He
cited influences like Cee Lo Green, Erykah Badu, Michael Jackson and
Outkast’s André 3000.

“I
would like to describe my music as eclectic, mainly because I take from
so many different things and I’ve branched out to so many different
genres,” he said. “I really like to make music that everyone can relate
to and respond to.”

His upcoming EP, Starlight, due
to drop this summer, is something he’s very excited about, because with
the disc, he’s trying something new: working with a live band.

“That’s
something that I kind of got into because of the Academy of
Contemporary Music that I go to,” he said. “They assign us with bands,
so I kind of got into that wanting to have a live band thing.”

It’s
also the first time that he’s making pop-rock music, straying a bit
from his usual approach. The first single for the project, “Mary Mary,”
showcases this.

“I’ve
already gotten a greater response than I ever have doing R&B music,”
Henderson said. “I don’t think that’s the reason why I started doing
pop-rock music — it just turned out that way. People are more responsive
to that type of music here.”