Audio of 2026 JXN Film Festival Best Music Video nominee Q&A with singer/dancer/filmmaker Kayla Jones, producer Charlie J. Wright, and singer/songwriter/director Cole Powell. Hosted by Dr. Candice Love Jackson. Guest appearance by Kobe Singleton (aka DJ Brosia). Tougaloo College, Tougaloo, Mississippi. July 27, 2026. The below transcript has been edited for clarity.
Candice Love Jackson: So, introduce yourselves and your category, your songs, and the inspiration behind your videos’ story.
Kayla Jones: Okay. Hey, my name is Kayla Jones. That was "5 6 7 Pose," and it was inspired by the TV series we filmed, 5 6 7 POSE. Honestly, during doing these actual challenges, we had to come up with something that our dancers could do in the end that would like really pop, and it was like, a music video would be wonderful for the TV series. Charlie came up with that idea, and me as an artist, I was like, "Heck yeah, we can do that."
Candice Love Jackson: I didn't know you also rapped and did hip-hop. I would know you as a dancer.
Kayla Jones: I do everything. I do everything. (laughs)
Candice Love Jackson: So where did y'all film that?
Kayla Jones: We actually filmed that in a U-Haul. (laughs)
Candice Love Jackson: But you know, that’s the power of movie magic.
Kayla Jones: Yeah, it is.
Candice Love Jackson: It gave me Puffy in the hangar." The look you all—
Kayla Jones: We got that metallic—
Charlie J. Wright: Yeah, metallic.
Kayla Jones: Metallic, futuristic look.
Candice Love Jackson: Yeah, yeah. You’re probably too young to remember. You remember Puffy in the airplane hangar? It was kid of the same—I’m showing my age. I’m sorry. I’m showing my age.
Candice Love Jackson: So how does it feel seeing it on the big screen?
Kayla Jones: Seeing it on the big screen is amazing. I honestly was watching it like, "Oh my God," I watched it a million and one times, but seeing it here is large. It's different. It's not like a laptop. It's not like a phone.
Candice Love Jackson: So, is the song available?
Kayla Jones: Yes, the song is on iTunes, YouTube, Apple Music. It's everywhere.
Candice Love Jackson: Okay. All right. Introduce yourself and your song and your concept.
Cole Powell: Yes, ma'am. I'm Cole Powell, and the song was "Never the Same." This was a very personal song for me. I had lost my father and my uncle five months apart from cancer back in 2021. This was kind of my response to that. It's kind of a sad song, but ultimately it's a song of hope because it talks about that even though we'll never be the same, we will get better. And I also, as a Christian, I know I have the hope of seeing my family whenever I pass too.
Candice Love Jackson: It's beautifully shot. Where did you shoot?
Cole Powell: In Jayess, Mississippi, which is where I'm from. That field and all those trees are actually right across the road from my house. It's family land. (laughs)
Candice Love Jackson: Did not even have to pay location. (laughs)
Cole Powell: Did not even have to pay for the location. I spend a lot of time — as much time as possible — out there in the woods, in the fields, and I think it's just the most beautiful place in the world.
Candice Love Jackson: You said music is personal, and particularly knowing that that is in homage — to pay respect. I lost my mother to cancer, so I know that kind of loss. How do you get through that creatively? So, that is amazing. Do we have any questions from the audience?
Audience Member 1: Yes, I have a comment. I just want to say that I enjoyed both of the videos. You know, I'm a child of the '80s.
Candice Love Jackson: Yes.
Audience Member 1: and so seeing that really made me think about the quality that these artists in Mississippi are doing. I wasn't aware of this, but those videos—like you said, Dr. Jackson—it looked like it could have been something, you know, in the MTV era.
Candice Love Jackson: Yeah, we might get back to that.
Audience Member 1: You both did an awesome job.
Kayla Jones: Thank you.
Cole Powell: Thank you.
Audience Member 1: I want to visit Jayess now.
Kayla Jones: (laughs)
Cole Powell: Come on down.
Audience Member 1: Kayla. I want to dance. You'll have to teach me: five, six, seven, eight. Me and Dr. Jackson.
Kayla Jones: (laughs)
Audience Member: So great job.
Cole Powell Thank you.
Kayla Jones: Thank you.
Cole Powell Thank you.
Candice Love Jackson: The only thing I remember is first position.
Kayla Jones: Well, you got that part. You got some fundamentals.
Candice Love Jackson: I got the position, just don’t ask me to do anything with those positions.
Audience Member 2 (Kobe Singleton): So, I’m gonna say, first of all, my name is Kobe Singleton. I'm also an international recording artist. Congratulations to you all on the work, especially doing music in this day and age. It’s a lot of competition. It’s a lot of stuff out there, so to make yourself relevant—it's a difficult thing. Congratulations to both of you for doing that.
Cole Powell Thank you.
Kobe Singleton: And Cole, this is no disrespect to you. This is only in relation to the style of music that I'm accustomed to playing at the events that I DJ. I'm also a DJ.
Candice Love Jackson: That’s a shameless plug.
(laughter)
Kobe Singleton: Right, right, right. So, yeah, Cole, at the type of events that I'm DJing, I don't think your style of music will go over too well.
Cole Powell: I'm sure not. (laughs)
Kobe Singleton: Yes. But to go on to the “5-0-1”—what is it? “5-6…”?
Kayla Jones and Candice Love Jackson: “5 6 7 Pose.”
Kobe Singleton: “5 6 7,” yeah.
Kayla Jones: You pose on the “eight.”
Kobe Singleton: Yeah, “5 6 7.” That song is definitely—it's got power. I hope that you all push it. I downloaded it already and I'm going to push it in my events.
Kayla Jones: Thank you.
Kobe Singleton: Yeah, I'm telling you, it's got fire. It's the right BPM. That's in that 90 to 99. That BPM is just right. I'm telling you, it's there. So I hope you all continue to push that. Cole, as well, in your style and in your genre of music. Wonderful artsmanship, wonderful heart. It was there, bro.
So, once again, I'm just emphasizing it because that's the album music and those are the types of music I play in events that I work.
Kayla Jones: Thank you.
Cole Powell Thank you.
Candice Love Jackson: He also DJs in New Orleans, so….
Kayla Jones: Come on, now.
Cole Powell: Nice.
Candice Love Jackson: You get a little pull to it too, right?
Kobe Singleton: Yeah, absolutely.
Candice Love Jackson: Yes, indeed. So, what is next for you all as artists?
Kayla Jones: Ooh.
Candice Love Jackson: So, you have the show.
Kayla Jones: Yes.
Candice Love Jackson: You finished the complete season. You're doing the second season?
Kayla Jones: Charlie, are we doing the second season?
Charlie J. Wright: We’ll have to see about that.
(laughter)
Kayla Jones: I would love to do a second season, but I'm going to be honest with y'all — especially me and Charlie did it by ourselves. Like, we text people: "Hey, come here. Hey, can you do this? Hey, can you meet us here?" Okay, fine, but wait till you get out of work. It was so hard to do a project with people and you're not mentioning money first. Let's start there. You know, people don't move without money. So it was hard to do that. And it was also hard to just finish and keep the motivation going, but we kept each other motivated to just keep it going. I would love to do a season two. I would love to make more music and get more people in Jackson involved. I love music. I listen to all types of music. Old music. It don't matter. I love music. I would love to keep making music, but I can't say it wasn't a challenge to just pull it off. But I'm so happy we pulled it off because the result is amazing.
Candice Love Jackson: It is amazing. And here's the thing: use this time. If you come into the gala, come to the festival, other screenings, to meet people who want to do that work and who are willing to invest sweat equity for the capital that it is, right? And so the only way that we can do that is to develop community. You know, you can't do it by yourselves all the time.
Kayla Jones: Yes.
Candice Love Jackson: Some things you do, some things you don't. What about you, Cole, what’s next for you?
Cole Powell: Well, I'm working on a music video right now.
Candice Love Jackson: Okay, all right.
Cole Powell: And this was actually the second of a music video trilogy—
Candice Love Jackson: Okay. Wonderful.
Cole Powell: —from my last album, The Social Distance. And I'm working on number three right now,
Candice Love Jackson: Okay. Congratulations.
Cole Powell: Thank you. And I hope to have it out in a couple of months. And then we'll see where it goes. It's actually kind of a concept album. I'd love to make a film version of the album. That'd be pretty cool. But you know, I don't know. We'll see.
Candice Love Jackson: Visuals are huge now.
Cole Powell: Absolutely.
Candice Love Jackson: I think, again, it's the same concept. Now, DJ Brosia—I hope I'm saying it right. I'm saying DJ Brosia back there. It may not be in his crowd, but we have filmmakers. Filmmaker is film. Film is humanity.
Cole Powell: Right. Absolutely.
Candice Love Jackson: So we work across, right?
Cole Powell: Absolutely.
Candice Love Jackson: So don't think of it that way, like, completely, right?
Cole Powell: Right.
Candice Love Jackson: It might not make his playlist.
Cole Powell: (laughs) That’s okay!
Candice Love Jackson: But that's okay, but you have other filmmakers here who can get together to meet, connect, work. Sometimes, we don’t do, as filmmakers, we don’t make—when you’re independent, you rely, as Blanche DuBois will say in Streetcar Named Desire, “We rely on the kindness of strangers.”
Kayla Jones: We do. We do.
Cole Powell: Absolutely. Absolutely.
Candice Love Jackson: We do have to rely a lot on the kindness of strangers, and we give and we give back. A lot of us volunteer. We've done this so long. But we're volunteering. We don’t—there’s no salary.
Cole Powell: (laughs)
Kayla Jones: (laughs) It’s not. It’s not.
Candice Love Jackson: But when you do get some funds, then you make sure you help the people who helped you along the way. And that's the sort of community building that you do.
Kayla Jones: Yes.
Candice Love Jackson: You may not know how to edit—you find somebody who can edit. You may need a cameraman—you find a cameraman, and you work on each other's projects and that's how you trade it off.
Kayla Jones: That’s beautiful.
Cole Powell: Absolutely.
Audience Member 3: I want to know how many days it took you guys to film your videos and edit.
Kayla Jones: We shot that video in one day—like what, three hours?
Charlie J. Wright: Yeah, it's about three, maybe four hours, because we had to film within the show, then film the—
Kayla Jones: Yeah, so that took about four hours to actually film. Now editing...
Charlie J. Wright: That was….
Kayla Jones: (laughs) That took a minute.
Charlie J. Wright: That took like maybe two months, but we hired somebody to do that.
Candice Love Jackson: How about you, Cole?
Cole Powell: Let's see. I think we shot that in two days, and I think it took us like two or three hours per day. We did it over a period of two months. We went in, I think, in April — did that first day — and then came back like in June or July and did the second day. And then as far as editing, yeah, the editing took—
Candice Love Jackson: A while. (laughs)
Cole Powell: Quite a while because we shot that in 2024 and we didn't actually get the video out until November 2025. (laughs)
(laughter)
Cole Powell: So, slow go. So, slow going.
Candice Love Jackson: Yeah, editing is a—
Kayla Jones: It's essential though.
Cole Powell: You got to do it.
Candice Love Jackson: You got to take your time to edit.
Cole Powell: You got to do it.
Charlie: It’s a hate-and-love relationship.
Cole Powell: Yes.
Candice Love Jackson: Yes, I've got a couple of editors that feel like that. (laughs) Great editor. Hates to edit. But editors are crucial to the process. I love the coloring of your videos. Lush. The cinematography—it was really, really good. And again, even in a U-Haul trailer. But—
Cole Powell: That was genius, by the way. That was brilliant.
Kayla Jones: (laughs) Thank you.
Cole Powell: Loved it. Loved it.
Candice Love Jackson: Because when you don't have the space and you're trying to create a certain look, you've got to think outside the box. And I think both of you thinking outside the box, even in content but also in the production, is absolutely amazing. You should be very, very proud.
Kayla Jones / Cole Powell: Thank you. Thank you.
(Audience applauds)
Candice Love Jackson: All right. Looking for season two.
Kayla Jones: We're going to push for it. We're going to push for it. (laughs) We’re going to push.
Candice Love Jackson: Sometimes rely on the kindness of strangers. (laughs)
Kayla Jones: Yes.
Candice Love Jackson: Thank y’all.
Kayla Jones: Thank you.
Cole Powell is an arts and media commentator and award-winning singer/songwriter from Jayess, Mississippi, USA, with degrees in computer technology, liberal arts, and theology. Host Random Reactions, Words Like That, and Film Nerd by Night. https://colepowell.net