Published on May 20th, 2021 | by Dr. Jerry Doby

James Dece Dominates the EDM Scene

Music has been around for centuries now and continues to evolve with the advancement of technology. Before, classical and rock music used to be on the boom, but during the 90’s era, Electronic or Electro music started getting in the limelight and eventually gave birth to new genres like Dubstep and Trap in the early 20th century. Electronic music is basically made using different electrical musical instruments along with digital musical instruments as well. Another branch of Electronic music is Electronic Dance Music (EDM), which is technically the same but is more upbeat to suit the nightclub and rave culture.

Starting early with Electronic music, Jonathan Baron Miller, known as James Dece in the music industry, is an American music artist based in Los Angeles, CA.

Born on the 27th of February 1982 in downtown Milwaukee, WI, Dece completed his graduation from Northeastern University (BAS). Growing up, the family lived near the East coast and then moved up towards the North. Dece’s mother was into the Classic Rock genre, mainly listening to Motown while also being a Quincy Jones fan. His elder brother was the one who greatly influenced Dece because he collected all sorts of music, even those that had parental advisories on them. Greatly influenced by Dubstep and Electro plus Metal genre, Dece started his career in the mid to late ’90s by stepping into hip hop songs production. Electronic Bass was evolving into a proper genre during that time, and people were slowly getting into it. This, along with Dece’s developing interest, made him get into Electronic music. Dece bought a sampler, a tape recorder that allows the user to make any kind of music with the recorded sound to start off. Went on buying a drum machine with a synthesizer, enabling himself to decide and write his own music. Artists like The Prodigy greatly influenced Dece.

Dece focuses more on spreading the global message of the community through his music. That is why he has a bass agenda that is non-genre limited. Dece keeps himself connected with his fans, interacting with them every now and then through his posts.
In that capacity, Dece is quite active on social media, having over 1042 posts on Instagram with a fan following of 8579 followers, over 4984 followers on Twitter and roughly over 10,074 followers and 14,565 listeners on Spotify and over 12,200 followers on SoundCloud.

The Road of Music

Dece’s music has a retro/electronic vibe to it that has a catchy tune, which sticks within the listener’s mind. The average length of his music is around 3 minutes. Dece has made numerous albums/Extended plays (EPs) and singles from time to time. His music includes amazing beat drops that surely make the listener go into a frenzy.

Dece started with an extended play named “Grecia” in 2014 that included 7 songs. He made an album in 2016 called “Seeing Red” that included 7 songs as well, with the average duration being 3 minutes to 3 minutes 30 seconds.

Jonathan B Miller becomes James Dece

The name Dece actually started off as a joke. Jonathan and his brother would call anything that was not up to the mark or was annoying as ‘Dece.’ Eventually, Jonathan’s friend started calling him James instead of Jonathan and added Dece to his name; thus what came out was James Dece, and that became his stage name.

Career and Record Labels

There are different record labels with which Dece has worked and is affiliated, namely Playmerecords, Recallrecords, and Plasmapool.

Dece, along with supporting different artists, has done numerous performances featuring different festivals and has also done music tours. These include Special Guest in Seven Lions Worlds Apart Tour (2014), Direct Support in Dr Fresch & Ghastly (2014), Summerset Music Festival (2015), Direct Support in MITIS (2016), Direct Support in ETC!ETC! (2016), Direct Support in Lookas Zero Gravity Tour (2016) and Spring Awakening Music Festival (2017).

Dece has also worked with different artists to produce numerous song tracks. The artists include Eric Morgan, Dread MC, SALADIN, SCCCN, and Von Haus.

Perhaps one of his career’s biggest achievement so far is earning EDMsauce.com’s Artist of the Week. Getting the EDM’s Artist of the Week is challenging, considering that Electro music is quite competitive and difficult to make. This eventually helps the artist get better reach and ultimately garners more ears for the music, creating a stronger music community altogether.

What does the future look like?

2021 has been a rollercoaster for the entire world because the previous year, 2020, for the majority, was one the worst year ever due to the pandemic. A lot of plans and projects got canceled. Similarly, the music industry is not an exception. Festivals, concerts, and performances were canceled due to lockdowns worldwide, which hampered the industry, let alone giving opportunities to growing music artists.

As things now slowly progress and with the vaccines coming in, life is slowly getting back on track. In that capacity, Dece has signed a four-track EP with Recall Records set to release later in 2021. Apart from this, he also has demo songs completed, but the details of those are yet to be disclosed.

Dece has huge potential to grow, considering that Electro/Trap music is slowly getting trendy again, especially with youth.
Social media is a great tool to showcase your talent. A single video can go viral easily; thus, it is always a good idea to connect with your fans and interact with them if you do have a fan following. With that being said, Dece is active on Instagram and Twitter, yet there is less fan engagement on these platforms. Once he engages more and more fans, his reach will improve, and thus this will increase the fan base altogether, and more people would be able to hear his music.

There are always opportunities just around the corner that turn out to be pivotal for success, which in this case, can be a collaboration between artists.

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About the Author

Dr. Jerry Doby Editor-in-Chief of The Hype Magazine, Media and SEO Consultant, Journalist, Ph.D. and retired combat vet. 2023 recipient of The President's Lifetime Achievement Award. Partner at THM Media Group. Member of the U.S. Department of Arts and Culture, the United States Press Agency and ForbesBLK.