Newport Beach musician encourages people recovering from addiction
Jilan Ji had no idea when she dropped a TikTok video in 2021 of a song she wrote about working in healthcare in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic that it would resonate with many who saw it and lead her to pivot careers.
Ji, who goes by the stage name Kitty Noir, said she’s always used music as an outlet for her emotions, whether or not it was heard by others. And until she posted just a few seconds of her song “Never Go Back,” her only experience in front of an audience was garage shows she put on as a kid with her next-door neighbor in Pasadena. They called their group the Ocean Band.
In 2020, Ji recounted, she was a traveling nurse, taking on temporary contracts with hospitals for 12- to 13-week stints.
“I’d help understaffed nursing units. I saw a lot of death, a lot of sad things during the pandemic,” she recalled. “I’ve never seen more of it in my life. It happened everywhere I went. I wrote ‘Never Go Back’ after I finished my latest nursing job. The lyrics [reflect how] I was obsessed with watching the pain and of feeling sad. I was addicted to the pain, but I was also addicted to substances at the time.
“I wrote that song and it ended up going viral on TikTok. Thousands of people commented, shared it and, to this day, people still make videos to the song.”
The video, posted on Sept. 27 of that year, was commented on by other healthcare workers. One viewer said she had just started a career in healthcare and lost one of their patients. Another said they left a job working in an intensive care unit because of the fallout of the pandemic. They could relate to the song, which has over 22,000 plays on Spotify.
Ji said the lyrics, which touch on unit understaffing, overwork and how enduring that fundamentally changed her, seemed to resonate with her peers.
“It’s when I realized that my focus shouldn’t be in [nursing]. My focus should be on music. That’s when I found music as my true outlet, true calling,” Ji said.
Ji, who lives in Newport Beach, said she now splits her time between studying for an emergency medical technician program at Orange Coast College and performing. In 2023 she released an album called “Metaphorical Arsonist,” which touches on her struggles with opiates, alcohol and other drugs.
Ji, who was adopted from China, says she is 23, but her actual birth date is unknown. She was found abandoned on a street in her home country — she doesn’t know whether she was a baby or a toddler at the time.
She said she first became a drug user when she was 11. She recently decided to quit, after feeling alone in the world. She has been sober for a year.
“All my friends told me that they didn’t want to be around me,” Ji said. “Nobody wanted to be around me. My parents didn’t even want to be with me. I’d make friends, and then they’d leave [either] because I was being used [for the] drugs I had on me or just certain situations. I just lost everybody and I had to look myself in the mirror and decide, ‘I’m done.’”
She said her favorite track on her album is titled “Are You Ever Gonna Change?”
“It’s about that moment and how I found faith and gratitude. How I learned everything would be OK if I had a higher power, a god in my life.”
Ji said she is performing on stages in Los Angeles and Orange counties. She will next have a show at the Viper Room in West Hollywood, and she hopes to get more tour bookings in the Southland.
“A lot of my fans in recovery say that, ‘You’re super inspiring.’ They feel like they can really connect with me on a deeper level since we’re both in recovery and kind of get it,” Ji said. “I have my regular normal fans and then my recovery fan base, but my recovery fan base — I feel a genuine connection with them. I’ve never experienced fan support in my life compared to how they support me. It’s incredible.”
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