A native Chicagoan, Danielle Willerman says she has “mad Chicago pride,” yet many students nationwide have seen her face before – singing and dancing in the “Teach Me How to Bucky” video that went viral earlier this year. The unsigned singer is a sophomore majoring in political science and radio, television and film at UW-Madison and goes by the name “Danielle Robay” when recording music on her own and as part of the group “Jump Smokers.”
“I’ve been singing my whole life,” she said. “I used to sing all the time and my parents were always really nice, but it was not so good. But, I always loved it so I took lessons; I was in choir in middle school and high school. I think it really helped, so ever since my senior year of high school I started recording.”
The beginning of Robay’s studio experience came serendipitously, thanks to her some nudging from her mother.
“It was luck. I don’t know if I believe in fate, but I think it was fate. My mom had won a trip to a radio station to go check it out. I was really tired and I didn’t want to go, but I went. While we were there, we met the radio DJ, J. Roman. My mom is kind of pushy and was like, ‘She sings!’ We started talking and he put me in contact with one of his producers. It ended up that [J. Roman and I] really clicked, and he started writing songs for me and I co-wrote with him; it was really cool. I’ve been doing that ever since. We have a group called Jump Smokers that he started – it’s dance, techno and pop music,” she said. “This summer I did a song with him for their first album called ‘Love of Electro.’ That was on iTunes, so it was so cool for me. He helps me out all the time; he’s amazing.”
Like much of her career has been thus far, Robay’s involvement with hip hop artists Quincy Harrison and Clifton Grefe of Zooniversity was unplanned and spontaneous.
“I had called Quincy for a favor because I know he’s great at recording; he’s a great producer,” she said. “The people from Chicago sent me something to do for Jump Smokers, and so I went over there and recorded it. After, he’s like ‘I have this idea, you can’t tell anyone about it.’ He told me about the whole idea, and I thought it was brilliant. He asked me to record a part right there and told me what to do. It took me like five minutes, and I was like, ‘Tell me what ends up happening with this’ because I kind of thought it would be him and his friends watching it in some basement. But it blew up; it was so cool.”
The “Teach Me How to Bucky” YouTube video had an explosive student reaction. Its current status of 1,582,528 views was something Robay had never expected.
“It was the weirdest thing that ever happened to me; I never thought it would get big like that. I saw Halloween costumes, there were shirts, we performed it live. It was an incredible experience, and I don’t know if I’ll have another like it; I can hope. It was all about college pride and it was cool the football team did so well, so it kept going,” she said. “[Quincy] is like a marketing brand genius, and I think that had a lot to do with the video’s success; he worked really hard on it.”
Some of Robay’s earlier songs – which are not currently on an album but can be found on her MySpace – capture the musical sound more typical of a ‘tween audience. However, she describes the music she currently produces with J. Roman and Jump Smokers as more of an electro pop, club scene genre. Either way, pop music is what she said she truly enjoys creating.
“I think I finally learned the sound I’m going for. It’s R&B pop; like soulful pop. I’m recording with [JT Roach] right now, and he’s making some beats for me and writing. It’s exactly what I want to be doing. He just graduated too, but he has his own music too; he’s really talented and a cool guy,” she said. “”There’s two things I absolutely love [about recording]. The first is that it’s a release for me. I feel like I’ve always been ‘a good girl’ without sounding dorky… Then, on the other end…every emotion is tied to music, so my goal is to hopefully do that for someone else. Have some 13-year-old girl on her bed be upset and want to turn my music on.”
Because of the array of opportunities she already had back home with her singing, Robay wasn’t sure at first what the new city would be like when she left for school.
“I never knew I would end up at Madison; it was never in my head,” she said. “I was scared what would happen with my music when I got here because everything I was doing was in Chicago, where I’m from. My mom was like, ‘Everything happens for a reason; have faith.'”
The transition from Chicago to a life at UW-Madison has proven to be an enjoyable one for the aspiring musician. This has been true for her recording endeavors and beyond.
“People in Madison are so creative; there are a lot of artists. There’s kind of a big music scene here that I didn’t even know about. It’s been really cool,” she said. “I’m in love with Chicago; it’s my favorite city in the world. I have mad Chicago pride, [but] what’s cool about Madison is I’ve been working with kids, people my own age. So it’s a lot different than working with somebody who’s so established. [J. Roman] knows what he’s doing and has taught me incredible amounts, but it’s just different.”
The rewards from the work she’s done, even without a record label attached to her name, has been very rewarding for Robay. She believes everything she records ties back to the values expressed in the lyrics of her very first song, titled “Real Girl.”
“Every time people comment on ‘Teach Me How to Bucky’ or say something about ‘Love of Electro’ that means a lot,” she said. “The first song I ever did was called ‘Real Girl;’ I co-wrote it with J. Roman. It means so much to me because the song lyrics are everything I’m about. I feel like when people say things to me about it I can’t believe people want to listen to my music, because it’s something that makes me so happy.”
