I was surfing through the Hype M popular charts the other day, and came across Jellosea’s remix of “Cups” sung by Anna Kendrick, which is itself a cover of “You’re Gonna Miss Me” by Lulu and the Lampshades. For those of you that aren’t a 16 year old girl, Anna Kendrick is an actress probably best known for her roles in the Twilight movies. She landed starring role in Pitch Prefect, a teen movie about college girls in an acapella singing group, released earlier this year. The “Cups” name comes from the main instrument used in the song: a cup. The track is featured in the film during Kendrick’s audition to get into the group, see it on YouTube here.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v2mawaBrvFg

While the film highlighted the Lulu and the Lampshades track, in many ways Kendrick’s version took the spotlight off them, especially once a full cover was produced along with music video starring Kendrick. Kendrick’s video has over 40 million views at the time of writing and she even performed with a cup on Letterman. Lulu and the Lampshades also made a video for the original, but it never quite broke 5 million hits. Hollywood commercialism at it’s best. See the original here.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DWCOYJg9ps4&list=PL76417761C0096CFC

At this point you might be asking why I’m talking to you about a teen movie star and her spolight-stealing musical cup skills. It’s so you can fully appreciate Jellosea’s originality in this remix. I confess, I saw the movie in theaters (I was on a date, it was cold, there was nothing else playing, shut up) and I still had NO IDEA where the tune came from until I looked it up. When I realized it was from this movie, I was blown away and decided to do a little digging on Jellosea.

Turns out, there isn’t much to find. He has no website, no Facebook Page, and his Soundcloud only has two other tracks up. But he is a Toronto native, and was cool enough to email me back when I told him about this article. Though he does have a musical background from playing guitar in high school bands, homeboy has only been producing seriously for 2 months. If you listen closely, you can hear how he took the guitar licks from Kendrick’s version and transcribed them to the synth in the remix. The track is a soulful, smooth, downtemo R&B remix with a command of mood that almost reminds you of The Weeknd. In other words, it’s cool – nothing like the teenie-pop Kendrick version. His remix peaked at number 2 on the Hype M popular charts, beaten out only by Madeon’s Technicolor. Not bad for 2 months of producing.

Jellosea is currently working on his debut EP and has some more remixes on the way. Definitely a local boy to watch.

https://soundcloud.com/jellosea/anna-kendrick-cups-jellosea