Arielle Lana LeJarde Interview
Arielle Lana LeJarde is a Brooklyn-based freelance writer. She focuses on profiling and interviewing underrepresented underground acts in hip-hop and dance music, and has bylines in Pitchfork, Mixmag, and more. In addition to her music writing, Arielle works at a booking agency, and does artist management and PR work on the side. (She’s been cited for her work on inclusion riders in live events in dance music.)
How did you get to where you are today, professionally?
I’ve been a writer my whole life, and I say that with confidence. From the first time I was given an assignment to write a short story in the third grade, I knew I loved it. I would write novels, short stories, and even fanfiction until my sophomore year of college and publish them on sites like Wattpad. In my junior year of college, I was an editorial intern at Elite Daily, where I focused on entertainment news, listicles, and sex + dating personal essays. Writing in entertainment news was my first taste of music writing, and probably the first time I had an inkling this is what I wanted to do. I grew up reading Complex and Vice, and considering my aggregated 100 job applications to those companies, it was definitely my dream to work there. Sex and dating writing helped me develop a playful yet empathetic voice. I still use it in a lot of my profile and feature writing. I also had internships in TV Production, travel writing, and digital marketing under my belt by senior year.
I ultimately went into digital marketing copywriting straight out of college in 2018 and in 2019, I decided I actually wanted to be in music. I had been going to electronic music events since I was 19, so I just wanted to be involved more. I got the opportunity to start writing for some underground electronic music blogs and became more passionate about music writing and interviewing artists through that. About 10 months ago, I got my first paid freelance journalism gig. Since then, I’ve been pitching everywhere I can, and I’m lucky enough to have landed on so many of my favorite sites where I get to talk about and to my favorite artists!