Donnie T. Smith in the music video for "Remember Me". Credit: Donnie T. Smith, Youtube.
It’s only around 5 p.m., but the dimly lit room and soft strings of the guitar make it feel
much later. At ‘My Little Magic Shop’ on the Upper West Side, a diverse crowd of all ages
gathers for ‘Improv for the Soul’, a self-described meditative jam session.
The quartet of musicians, a young man playing electric guitar, two female vocalists, and an
older man playing a Turkish Oud feed off of each other, singing and improvising whatever
they feel. The crowd of around 20 onlookers mostly nod and sway softly to the music.
After about 20 minutes, the evening’s host calls on Donnie T. Smith, another musician in
the audience, to join them. Donnie quickly blends in, harmonizing his brassy, soulful tone with the other vocalists. The vocalists are light on lyrics, mostly riffing and vocalizing freely, but every so often, words come to them. ‘Can you feel it? It’s in the air...” sings Donnie.
Just after this jam session, Smith will head back to Crown Heights, where he works as a
barback at nights, and also lives. During the day he works as a vocal coach and teacher’s
assistant at The New School, his alma mater. And between all this, Smith makes time for
his budding career as a singer-songwriter, a passion of his that he’s been preparing for all
his life.
“I don't know how I do it. I do my best to do all the things and rest at the same time. But rest
is hard,” says Smith, 25, who graduated from The New School of Jazz and Contemporary
Music in 2022 with his BFA in Vocals. “The train helps me a lot. I have to take train rides
almost every day. I will sing on the train, I will write on the train. I will work on songs that are
unfinished on the train. I just kind of zone out on the train.”
Smith was born in Connecticut and raised in North Carolina in a musical family. “They just
played music all the time around the house, so I kind of absorbed that unconsciously,” says
Smith, who grew up listening to mostly Gospel and R&B. “My grandmother and my aunt are
singers, so I would sing with them all the time, and I just kind of fell in love with it.”
When Smith was in middle school, he had his first big moment in the spotlight. He was
asked to sing a solo of the classic American folk song “Wayfaring Stranger”, which had
recently been re-popularized by Ed Sheeran, at a school choir recital.
It was the first time that Smith, and those around him, were able to see his talent on full
display. “Everyone was so shook by my voice. They were like, “Wow Donnie, you're great.” I
was like, “Oh, wow. Maybe I am pretty good at this.”
The moment is still emblazoned in his mind. He remembers people clapping and cheering.
He looked out into the crowd and saw his mother crying. “She started to cry, and I started to
cry while I was singing the song,” says Smith. “It was a beautiful moment, but it kind of
scarred me for life.”
He had stage fright for a while after that, but he’s long overcome it. “Now I'm very
comfortable on stage. I allow myself to be very vulnerable,” says Smith. “It's like a drug to
me, like I get high when I'm on stage. ”
After high school, Smith decided to study music professionally at The New School, where
he majored in vocals. Though he says he’s always despised school and had a problem with
authority, the experience gave him the skills needed to start making his own music.
“Studying jazz was a bit difficult because it was out of my comfort zone, but it really helped
with my singing, ” says Smith, who also learned piano in college at 18. Vocally, his biggest influences are Lauryn Hill, Jazmine Sullivan, and Erykah Badu, but he says he tries not to sound like anybody else.
Since 2021, Smith has been recording and performing his original music, mostly R&B with
touches of Jazz. His first EP “Alone” opens with the lo-fi R&B track “Not Loney”. It was the
first song he made that he was truly proud of. On the track, Smith revels in his own
company.
“Ain’t lonely ‘cause I got me, alone but I'm not lonely, couldn’t be more happy, I found
peace, I’m at ease,” sings Smith, in a deep raspy voice that feels equally classic as it does
modern.
“You don't find many people today that sound like Donnie, with the technique and the
control he has, but also the emotion behind every word,” says Izzy Durso, 21, Donnie’s
friend and fellow musician who he met while at The New School. Durso describes Donnie’s
voice as “too good for this generation”. The two often sing backup for one another at gigs
with their other friend Dakota. “I don't think he ever had an issue telling somebody what he
wanted when he wanted it, and then also turning around and being the funnest person in
the room.”
Donnie is mostly laid back, but he describes himself as an “ambivert”, both introverted and
extroverted depending on the day. When he got sent home to North Carolina from school
during the pandemic, he started posting playful TikToks, twerking to songs like Megan Thee
Stallion’s “Savage”, and talking to his cat. The videos took off, and today Smith boasts
338,000 followers on the platform.
“I've always been, like, a good twerker. I've always, like, enjoyed that, and apparently
everybody on TikTok enjoyed it too,” says Smith, who posts less often on the platform in
recent years, but is hoping it can help boost his music career. “I feel like I should probably
post more on TikTok to get my name and my face out there.”
Smith writes all of his lyrics and is wary of working with producers after a ‘sour’ experience
with his first producer, who wanted to be more like a manager than a collaborator. “He kind
of constructed this contract, basically saying that if I were to work with anyone else after
we put out the project that we were working on, he would get a portion of that income,” says
Smith. Today, he prefers to buy beats from producers and write over them himself. He
begins recording demos at home, then later finishes them in a studio.
Though he’s released 3 EPs, most recently 2024’s “Alone 2gether”, Smith says he’s not quite
ready to seek out a label, management, or an agent, preferring to grow in his artistry before
that step. “I really want to study jazz a bit more, I want to play more instruments. I want to
learn how to play guitar. I want to learn how to play piano better,” says Smith.
Before the end of the year, Smith hopes to release another EP. He’s also working on songs
for a full-length album project in the future. “I want to do everything, I don't want to feel
boxed in to any genre,” says Smith, who looks up to the careers of Melanie Martinez and
Jacob Collier, successful musicians who live left of center to the mainstream. “The
mainstream aspect isn't necessarily a goal of mine. I just want to be respected, known, and
one of the best. ”
For now, Donnie’s family are his biggest fans. Most notably, his dad. “He came to my last
show with a shirt that said, “Donnie T. Smith: all streaming platforms.” and that was just so
Comments