Jorel Blu - Founder/Creator
From the very first song I wrote, I’ve always been open about my mental health. Music was my only outlet for a long time. Growing up I didn’t have the resources we have now or at least I didn’t know where to find them. I found it hard to be vulnerable or speak on the things I felt because I’d constantly get told to just “toughen up” and “be a man”. As you can imagine those remarks weren’t very helpful.
When I learned more about the things I felt, I grew a passion to help others just like me. I made a promise that if I were ever given the opportunity, I’d use my platform to bring awareness around mental health. That changed to, “I’ll just create my own opportunity.”
Thankfully we live in time where mental health is widely respected and so many incredible people are doing their part to bring awareness. With that said there’s still so much work to be done. Which is why currently 50% of the profits we make from “Feeling Blu” will go directly to Mental Health Organizations.
I guess the next question is, “WHAT IS FEELING BLU?”
But I think the right question is, “Who is Blu?”
Blu is all of us.
In and out.
You can define it however you seem fit.
From the beat up shoes, all the way up to the paper bag homemade mask.
How did you overcome your biggest fears?
How are you getting through your darkest days?
What’s your story?
We can all be here for one another.
Our best days are still ahead of us.
When you’re “Feeling Blu’’ it doesn’t mean we should stop or slow down or stay down - we just need to find ways to keep us moving forward.
That’s what Blu represents to me.
I recently went through something pretty traumatic and it felt like all my progress reverted. My tone and negativity got the best of me but speaking out and being vulnerable brought so many positive people around me. It reminded me that I’m never really alone.
There are so many people fighting the same fight each and everyday and being there for one another can go so far.
I’m still learning and together we’ll make a difference.
-Jorel Blu
Raco Ruiz - Artwork
Raco Ruiz is a 25-year-old video director/visual artist from Manila. When it comes to his visual art, Raco usually creates work that is influenced by surrealism, graffiti art, pop art, and low brow cartoon art. He usually creates art using bright neon pastel colors with a few traditional East Asian art accents such as drawings of clouds or smoke; and more often than not, featuring a pop culture icon or two.
Over the years, Jorel Blu has asked me to bring a lot of his mad genius ideas to life, but when he sent me the brief for his concept for “Feeling Blu”, I thought to myself that this idea was his greatest one yet. It was also a no brainer that it meant the world to him because of the amount of detail he put into the character description, so naturally I wanted to create the best possible Blu character design I could come up with in order to make Blu truly come to life and stand up for all the great ideas and beliefs Jorel wanted the character to represent in the first place. -Raco Ruiz