Jodi Hendrix

Kansas City, Missouri has a rich history in the performing arts. Home to the Kansas City Ballet, the Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts, and the birth of Kansas City jazz—coined as the origin of Bebop—KCMO has engulfed 25-year-old native, Jodi, with musical inspiration his entire life. Realizing that he had a natural talent after singing a song dedicated to a friend in grade school—coupled with a lineage of natural-born singers like his father. It was only a matter of time before Jodi would pursue his calling.

Jodi Hendrix —as he is known throughout social media sites—describes his sound as smooth and seductive. Jodi serves up a nice dose of sensuality mixed with more upbeat club joints, all the while keeping it suave throughout.

As a singer-songwriter, Jodi says that he is inspired by notable artists before him, such as Usher, Maxwell, R. Kelly and Prince—and he hopes to one day collaborate with any if not all of these artists. Life has also served as a muse for the singer, who admits to using his day-to-day interactions with those around him to help him write his songs; flipping “The fallacy of this dry ass reality”—as Jodi puts it—into tracks that’ll make you want to dance and romance. Another motivator for Jodi is his family and the hopes that he’ll be able to give them a better life when he makes it big.

Nowadays, most of these artists springing out from all over the map find success in one hit single, and coast on their laurels with the “I’m poppin’ right now” mentality, only to fall flat a few months later. Young Jodi would’ve been a victim of the same pitfall mindset had it not been for his mentor and collaborator DJ Dirty Harry who did something clever to keep Jodi’s feet on solid ground.

“DJ Dirty Harry flew me out to New York to do some writing. I went out there cocky, not knowing that he was sending me through a boot camp. I had to come up with a full song in an hour after hearing the beat for the first time—and it didn’t matter if I liked the beat or not. It really humbled me, and it encouraged me to work even more on my craft,” Jodi stated of the career-altering moment.

Today, Jodi is known for stealing hearts across the nation with his performances—garnering the moniker “The Thief of Hearts.” He has performed in major cities such as Los Angeles, Las Vegas, Miami and Dallas where he’s opened up for acts like Trey Songz, Jeremih, Joe, Keyshia Cole, Avant, Ginuwine and Morris Day & The Time, among many others. And he’s achieved all of this as an unsigned artist. He has also been featured on major R&B blogs such as, thisisrnb.com, singersroom.com, ratedrnb.com, along with hosting several major R&B compilations and mixtapes. His run in the mixtape circuit has even gotten Jodi featured on livemixtapes.com and datpiff.com.

Kansas City born and Kansas City raised, Jodi stays faithful to his roots giving back to his community every opportunity he gets. With silky smooth tunes and a humble spirit, there’s no denying that Jodi is a star in the making. Keep a lookout for his future projects, including his next release, 69 shades of Jodi .