Fair Street

By Jessey Jansen

Memoir | Creative Entrepreneurship | Cross-Cultural Collaboration

​

Website: jesseyjansen.com

Music Label: voiceofmaasai.com

Contact: jessey@voiceofmaasai.com

​

Book Overview

Fair Street: My Road to Voice of Maasai traces Jessey Jansen’s journey from small-town Wisconsin to co-founding an independent music label in northern Tanzania. More than a travel memoir, the book examines how creative work becomes sustainable through relationship, restraint, and responsible pacing. Built without venture capital or institutional sponsorship, Voice of Maasai grew through trust-based exchange and long-term commitment. The memoir offers an unvarnished look at creative entrepreneurship—what it takes to build something cross-culturally, how to sustain it financially, and when to say no.

​

Why This Book Matters

• Explores creative entrepreneurship beyond startup culture and scale-at-all-costs thinking

• Offers a real-world case study of cross-cultural collaboration in music and media

• Addresses financial sustainability in independent creative ventures

• Speaks to founders balancing art, ethics, and revenue

• Challenges romanticized narratives of “impact” work

​

About the Author 

Jessey Jansen is a writer, visual artist, and founder of Voice of Maasai, an independent music label built through long-term collaboration with Tanzanian artists. Raised across from a county fair in small-town Wisconsin, she learned early that creativity and exchange could open doors—an ethos that later shaped her entrepreneurial work.

 

She splits her time between Austin and Seattle and travels regularly to northern Tanzania, where Voice of Maasai operates. Her work bridges writing, design, and cross-cultural music production, focused on building sustainable creative systems without institutional backing. Fair Street explores the discipline behind that work—and the quiet decisions required to sustain it.​​​