Jyme is the indie rock project of Portuguese-American singer, songwriter, and multi-instrumentalist Jaime Duarte. In the studio, Jyme does everything himself — writing, recording, performing, and producing every piece of music.
The project was conceived in Los Angeles in 2018, when Jaime officially shortened his name to Jyme, hoping people would finally pronounce it correctly.
After receiving a scholarship, Jyme attended Musicians Institute for two semesters before dropping out. He landed a short-lived internship at NRG Recording Studios, which ended after repeatedly calling the studio manager “Mr. Models” — inspired by a shirt the manager wore that read “Sorry, I only date models.” The joke didn’t land. He was fired.
A few months later, a friend introduced him to legendary producer Dallas Austin, who encouraged Jyme to stop chasing engineering jobs and focus fully on songwriting. That advice turned into a friendship and informal mentorship, eventually leading to a single collaboration between Jyme, Dallas Austin, and Hustle & Flow Oscar winner D Smoke.
After staying at Dallas’s home, Jyme felt a creative shift. While he ultimately decided to take his music in a different direction, he carried with him the heart, confidence, and creative energy that deeply impacted his approach to songwriting.
After briefly moving back home to Walnut Creek, Jyme returned to Los Angeles, where he struggled to keep steady work. Music had taken over completely. He became obsessed with the process of songwriting and production, sometimes studying for 12+ hours a day through YouTube and online tutorials. To survive, he worked bar jobs, drove Uber, and cycled through food delivery gigs — anything that allowed him to keep making music.
Then things took a dark turn.
Jyme came home one day to find his cat had been killed by his neighbor’s pit bull. A week later, that same neighbor’s girlfriend was found dead on Jyme’s doorstep from an overdose. Soon after, the pit bull’s owner slipped in the shower and broke his neck. Sharing a backyard with them, the events felt too close, too heavy, and impossible to ignore. Jyme took it as a sign that his time in Los Angeles had run its course.
He packed up his studio and moved to Portugal, settling into his grandfather’s house. His parents allowed him to convert an empty room into a recording studio, where he began working on his debut album, Miraventos. The experience felt full-circle — the very room he recorded in once housed a Montessori school run by his mother in the 1990s, which Jyme himself attended as a child.
