Stanley Ray

## Early Life

Stanley Ray Moore Jr was born and raised in Mount Vernon, a small town in southern IL. He is the 2nd oldest child of 4 kids by his dad and the oldest of 3 kids by his mom. His childhood life was very rocky and his family was often dysfunctional, with Stanley admitting his parents argued and fought a lot. He was raised predominately by his dad because his mom was in and out. His dad, Stanley Moore Sr, worked at Ford Square for 25 years, washing cars to make ends meet and provide for his children. His mom, Aronza Jackson, when around was mostly a stay at home mom, who took care of the house, did all the cooking and helped with getting Stanley and his siblings ready for school early in the mornings by getting them dressed and doing their hair. She didn't work at an actual job as much as his dad, but she was also the parent who kept him and his 2 younger siblings grounded in Church and made sure they lived their lives by the word of God, making sure they always prayed every single night, repented their sins when necessary, and covered their foreheads in blessed oil.

So far, Stanley's only publicly talked a couple times about the details of his deepest childhood traumas, including that his dad was an alcoholic and was often physically violent to his mom, as well as to him and his brother, which is also connected to his on going battle with anxiety and depression through out his childhood and teenage years. "I loved my dad, but I was scared of him," he says. "I've never self harmed or anything like that but I was the type that would go days, sometimes a whole 1 or 2 weeks where I wouldn't eat." Ontop of that, he was a young black boy who held in a heavy secret about his sexuality and attraction to other boys. Knowing neither of his parents, or the God he worshipped faithfully, wouldn't be accepting of it, he carried it around quietly for years.

Music was his escape. At the age of 4 or 5 he started singing and developed a deep love for music. Til this day he credits his parents for his taste in music. His dad introduced him to rap artists like Snoop Dogg, 2pac, DMX, along with R&B artists like Jodeci, The Isley Brothers, and Earth, Wind, & Fire. His mom introduced him to Soul R&B singers like Shirley Murdock, Patti LaBelle, Stephanie Mills, and Al Green. He developed his own personal liking and admiration for singers like Beyoncé, Destiny's Child, TLC, Usher, and Aaliyah, to name a few. "I love that I was a young kid in the early 2000s. There were so many great songs out at that time and I'm so lucky to have gotten to live it and experience it." Stanley also found peace and sweet bliss in the holiday Christmas, repeatedly and openly expressing his love for it later on in his life in almost all his interviews once he became a musical artist, as well as it becoming a dominant part of his overall brand as an artist. "It's the absolute love of my life and I'll always hold it close to me. Forever."

## Career (the beginning)

By the time he was 8 years old, in 2007, he began recording music. His dad bought a little grey Kodak camera, that was often used for family photos, but Stanley would often use it to record his voice over blank instrumentals he'd find on YouTube. At this particular time, he had a skill and technique that he now calls "freestyle singing" where he'd sing multiple songs all the way through in one take, despite the words he sung not having solid meanings behind them. "When I was younger singing was just all in good fun for me," he says. "I didn't actually think about being famous in the beginning, I just enjoyed hearing my voice ontop of a beat and that feeling of 'I have music with my voice on it'. I really loved it."

Around 2011, he moved on to recording his music on Nintendo DSI, using the Flipnote Studio built-in application, which allowed him to now layer his voice and gave him more room to edit and build a full bodied song. The only catch was the audio quality was fuzzy and distorted and the music would often clash with his voice but he was always a kid who made the best of his limited resources so he didn't allow that to stop him for making music. "Even then, I didn't like excuses. Nothing was gonna stop me from recording and making my music." He also began actually writing his songs at this time, losing his talent of being able to "freestyle sing", which now meant the hard work began to really kick in, forcing him to train and learn how to properly invest a lot of time into making a song from start to finish. Often staying up very late recording, even on school nights, Stanley constantly sharpened his craft and worked hard to always deliver his best on every demo he'd record, even sacrificing being a regular teenager by not going to either of his high school Proms and also not often hanging out with friends outside of school.

Stanley graduated from Mount Vernon Township High School (aka MVTHS), in May of 2017 at 18 years old. A couple months after he graduated, despite his entire family's strong disapproval, he flew out to Las Vegas, NV, with the help of a couple friends he was now in a group with at the time, who also were his roommates once he was out there. But things would ultimately end up not working out because after nearly 3 whole months of being out there he was flown back home after a fall out with his roommates that almost left him stranded. Once back home, he began working as a waitress and cashier at Panera Bread and also officially began production for his debut album. After repeatedly being unsuccessful with finding both a reliable and affordable studio to record at, he decided he'd record his entire album on his android phone using a music studio app called Bandlab. Stanley decided to use a couple of his teenage demo songs he'd wrote and recorded the previous years while still in highschool, with a song called "That's Just Me" being the very first song he layed down vocals on for his debut album but it was later shelved at the last minute. His other 2 demo songs he decided on were "Being With You" and "Unhandsome", for which he slightly re-wrote them and then completely re-recorded them to reconstruct both songs from their original mono demo format. Stanley was apprehensive about the albums mixing and production because he had no experience with mixing vocals or mastering songs, with him later expressing that he regrets not keeping the production simple and sparse. "The unmastered and demo versions of all the songs from my first album were better than the versions that actually ended up on the album. I over did it with the production and that resulted in all the mistakes being brought out rather than fixing them." While recording his album, he was silently saving up his money to move to Los Angeles, California. Desperate to avoid his family's negative opinions and disapproval, he kept it a secret and on September 4, 2019, he quietly flew himself out and while out there he spent those last couple months of that year finishing the recording of his album.

## BabyBoy

January 4, 2020, Stanley officially released his debut album "BabyBoy" to all digital streaming platforms, with him also releasing all 4 singles simultaneously on the same day. Originally released independently through Distrokid, he would go on to redistribute it again through Artist Republik and again for the 3rd and final time through EmuBands. The album was led by the debut and lead single, "tinderlinderlover", an R&B Soulful ballad with a heavy 90s infused sound, followed up with 3 more singles, "Lavender Boy", "Being With You", and "Wild Lovin'".

The album didn't experence immediate success, as Stanley was not only a brand new artist, he was an independent artist and didnt have the high budget, the push, or the benefits that artists who are signed to major record labels have. Slowly but surely that would change though. "tinderlinderlover" was the 1st song to reach over 1 thousand streams on both Spotify and YouTube within it's first few weeks of release. Stanley heavily promoted the song, with the help of Google, so much so that the song was also the first of all the singles to receive airplay on a few different indie radio stations, internet radio stations, and a couple college radio stations. Also, after having to shoot all the music videos from his android phone because of not having the funds to afford an actual budgeted video, it's music video, which premiered on YouTube May 4, 2020, was his very first music video that reached over 100 thousand views, 9 months after its premiere on the platform. A huge milestone for Stanley as new indie artist. Stanley's style for this era also played a role in how he promoted and presented his debut. He rocked baggy clothes and wore cross colours, denim on denim, and overalls.

One ongoing challenge he faced after releasing his album were the restrictions due to the global pandemic of the COVID-19 virus. This put alot of his future plans he had after releasing his album on hold. The main one being that he planned on going on a local mini tour around the LA city area where he lived but engaging in large crowds of people or being in public around too many poeple was now absolutely unsafe. This forced Stanley to really utilize his researching skills on Google, just like he was already doing with the promotion of his debut single "tinderlinderlover", in order to keep his debut album active and in the algorithm of different streaming platforms around the web as best as he could. Something else that was a recurring issue for him was fighting to be respected and taken seriously. He was 20 years old and most people in the music industry are older and more established and experienced so he got over looked a lot. "People around me would say 'Oh you're just a kid. Come back in a few years when you're serious about this. You still have some growing up to do' and I'd be like 'what do you mean? I am ready now' so it was really frustrating but I just had to prove myself. I'm very aware that my album is imperfect but I can't claim to want something so bad in life but not be willing to utilize what I have right now until I can work my way up to having more, to being able to afford actual studio time, being able to afford actual production for my music videos. All of that. I don't wanna sit around and wait. So I stand by my art and what I've created. I worked so hard on this album so, to me, it's worthy enough to be released and shared for the whole world to hear."

Aside from teaming up with Blip to help him get multiple digital billboard ads put up around LA and sometimes other states, as well as getting 50 physical CDs pressed for nearly $500 and packaging them all up and sending them to different record labels, he also spent hundreds and thousands of dollars of his own money on online ads between Google and YouTube to help drive traffic and engagement to his YouTube Artist Channel and also constantly reached out to several huge radio stations and outlets in hopes of getting his songs played on mainstream radio. Also, he was able to get onto over 100 playlists on Spotify within that first year of his album being released.

## Scorpio Sessions

Stanley released his second album "Scorpio Sessions" on October 24, 2021, through EmuBands, right at the start of Scorpio season, which was apart of his marketing strategy for the album. Production for the album initially started in the Fall of 2020. Stanley teamed up with long time producer and friend Jacob "Jay-Play" Thompson, who ended up producing 7 of the 10 songs on the album, including the albums 2nd and 3rd singles "love on me" and the title track "Scorpio Sessions". The albums 1st and lead single "CRUSH" was produced by Zohair. It's music video was the first of all the singles to reach 1 thousand views 2 months after it's premiere on YouTube, while his music video for "Scorpio Sessions" reached 1 thousand views the fastest, in just 3 weeks after it premiered on YouTube. "CRUSH" also was the first song on the album that caught the ears of a couple radio outlets that had access to other bigger mainstream radio stations, the first being Desert Storm Radio with Dj Culture, Dj Ceas, and Dj Clue, who as soon as they heard it, loved the song so much they reached out to Ray to have his song played live on air. "Just Like You" is currently his most shazamed song on the album.

Stanley's approach this time around was to switch over from youthful and colorful to "grown and sexy", which was the albums overall concept. It also goes hand in hand with the albums title because Scorpios are known to be the most intense and sexual zodiac sign of them all so it was Stanley's way of bringing the definition of that narrative of Scorpios to life. Stanley's style also became more sexy and slightly feminine, wearing more fitted clothing and showing his stomach and belly button more often rather than his usual cross colours and baggy clothes. He credits "growth" and "maturity" as the reasons for his style change. "I think it's important to be able to express yourself and to be comfortable with your body," he says. "I went most of my life so covered up because of insecurities I had about myself so today at 22, as I continue to grow up and mature, I'm learning to love my body. It's still a work in progress but I like how far I've come."

In terms of promotion this time around, just like the first time, he invested alot of money into everything he could think to do. Still in the thick of the COVID pandemic, things like performing live and doing alot of physical networking was still out of the question and nearly impossible with everything still shut down. Not to mention, Stanley still wasn't quite yet in a position financially to afford big budget music videos so he ended up shooting all 3 videos from his phone this time around, just like with the first album. He also was still dealing with the scrutiny and burden of people brushing him off as "too young" and "not ready yet", which proved to be extremely difficult and frustrating for him while trying to break through big as a new artist. Financially, things began slowing down too, causing a halt on the albums potential rise in algorithms on streaming platforms, as well as a decline in his followers on all his social medias at the time.

Despite all the obstacles, Stanley was once again able to successfully get on multiple spotify playlists. He even got a spot on Spotify's Release Radar, had his own Radio playlist titled "Stanley Ray Radio" made by Spotify, and was spotted more than once on Spotify's Discover Weekly. Though initially, the album didn't seem to match the success he had with his debut in terms of video views on YouTube and the number of streams on music platforms, as both stayed stagnant, with every song only reaching a couple hundred views/streams and all 3 music videos on YouTube couldn't seem to pass between 1000-1,500 viewers within the first year and a half of the album being out. This was partly due to lack of funds to properly promote it, as well as the stalled period of time between the albums release day and the day "CRUSH" premiered on YouTube, causing a decline and slow rise of success for the album. "I think waiting so long to drop the first music video played a role in why it took a while for the album to pick up momentum. We live in a time now where people have short attention spans and they wanna see music videos for songs ASAP and if you don't deliver a video when people want it they quickly lose interest."

## This Is Me

August 31, 2023 was the release of Ray's 3rd Studio album, "This Is Me", through EmuBands. The album is led by it's lead single "Attractive", released August 1st, 2023 and was ultimately the album that caused a major shift in Ray's life and career in a way he initially never imagined. The album was conceived due to lots of different painful and difficult circumstances he faced between 2021 and 2022. Ray revealed that during his second and last year in Los Angeles his mental health took a turn and that he had a "reality check" after realizing moving to a new state wasn't the solution to his problems. He was able to keep a positive attitude during the entire first half of the pandemic in 2020, unlike everyone else, but covid was the least of his worries. Most of his mental health problems stemmed from childhood traumas, wishing he could fix his dysfunctional family, and the stress of trying to live and survive in a big city all by himself with limited funds. He was still recording his second album "Scorpio Sessions" at this time but he says his depression often affected him on days when he was supposed to be recording and often questioned whether or not if he would even complete the album in time. "There were alot of days where I just couldn't get out of bed. I was glued to my bed constantly. That's such an ugly space to be in."

After being evicted, he flew back home just weeks before Christmas, initially thinking that maybe being back home was just what he needed to be whole again but Ray went further down hill mentally. What hurt most was his family was still broken and highly dysfunctional. "It's just crazy when the one thing you want more than anything in the world is something you just can't have." But It was during this dark period that songs from "This Is Me" began to be conceived. Ray revealed he didn't always have a beat already picked out or a melody in his head, he was just writing down things that came straight from his heart and would later match all the lyrics to their appropriate beats.

Recording officially began January of 2023 and carried on until the middle of August that same year. The date August 31st was chosen as the release date because it was the 8th year anniversary of the passing of Ray's dad. Having low expectations initially, release day began with a simple post on Ray's Facebook with a caption explaining the anxiety he experienced as release day approached, along with links to the album on Spotify, Apple Music, and YouTube Music. Later Ray would reveal that not only did the post receive close to 100 likes and comments of people congratulating/encouraging him, his overall day was filled with random messages and even phone calls from not only his family but other locals in his hometown of Mount Vernon, IL sending their praises and love and commending him on his bravery to release an album so deep. Ray said that he could "feel a shift in the air" on release day and that something was definitely different this time around and that he was excited to see what was to come next. He was soon added to Spotify's Release Radar for the 2nd time, as well as Spotify Radio, both within just 2 days of the albums release. 23 days after release, on Saturday September 23, a small ad was placed in the local Mount Vernon newspaper talking about his new album. That followed up with him landing on the cover of the newspaper the following week, Friday September 29. This created an instant buzz about him that raced through his small town and in total disbelief, Ray took to his Facebook and Instagram showing his gratitude for all the love he was shown since dropping "This Is Me" and how proud he was to officially be a successful local artist in Mount Vernon, IL. Thanks to the love his hometown showed him, initially not much promotion was needed to push his album those first few months. The music video for his song "Attractive" premiered on YouTube December 27, 2023 and reached over 1k views in the first 22 hours and over 10k views in just 6 days. Despite having a much delayed release, the high anticipation no doubt played a part in why the music video performed so well in it's first week. The rose Ray holds on the album cover is said to symbolize him, his imperfections and all his struggles, as well as strength and perseverance.

Ray delves deep into anxiety, isolation, wavering faith, depression, and family dysfunction on "This Is Me". Songs like "A Pain Like This", "Last Time", and "Tearicle" all express heartbreak, dealing with a terrible break up and being fed up with having an on and off again relationship with a toxic partner but also how it can be a struggle to let them go or get over them. "Dear Family..." is a tear jerking letter to his parents and his little brother, expressing where his childhood trama, abandonment issues, and trust issues come from, as well as his guilt for being a "shitty older brother" growing up, though he doesn't mention either of his sisters in the song. "This Is Me" explains his story of being disowned and a misfit since birth all because he was a young boy who was homosexual and everything the world didn't want him to be, how he dealt with bullying in school, having to go home to his parents fighting and screaming at eachother every day growing up, and how he starves for love and acceptance. The "Disappear (Inner-lude)" is a diary entry for anyone who feels lonely or depressed and the desire to wanna dissappear and not feel the weight of the world. "All Over Me" is an insanely intense romantic song, with him telling a potential lover how he desires to understand how they feel and wanting them to take any and every bit of aggression out on him and to have their way with him and be all over him in the bedroom. More upbeat and fun songs are "Attractive", talking about being sexually attracted to someone while also being magnetically attracted to them, "Midnight Run", a song about cruising in your car really late a night under the moon, and "Why I Love You", a simple love letter expressing his love and gratitude for his significant other.