Discovery Set Diaries | Entry 07. Zernell Gillie Fragrances – Music Is Life

Hilary Burke
Feb 12
5 min read

Updated: Mar 6

I have been looking forward to this discovery set for some time. If there are two things I love, it's fragrance and music — and a brand born from these two art forms? You know I’m going to try it.

I have always said it’s a good thing I wasn’t a teenager in the 70's because I would never have survived the Disco Era. Studio 54. Paradise Garage. LA’s Studio One. They would have been my playground. Spandex and polyester would have been my fashion. Dance-oriented rhythmic beats would have been my soundtrack.

And I fear glamour drugs would have been my downfall.

Luckily for me, I was born in 1976 — not coming of age in disco, but rather growing up in its lingering glow.

With that came my musical upbringing which was a configuration of the tail end of disco, and mostly the combined love of music my parents shared. My mom adored Diana Ross and The Supremes, Elvis, Broadway show tunes, Stevie Nicks, Rod Stewart, and Tina Turner. My dad loves instrumental and symphony music — as well as James Brown, Eric Clapton, and everyone singing the blues.

I have older brothers, so their influence stretched from Journey and REO Speedwagon to The Kinks and The Cure. My own 80's upbringing brought: Prince, Madonna, Michael Jackson, and George Michael. Then hair bands. Then grunge — all hail Ed Vedder and Chris Cornell. In my teens I landed squarely in my classic rock era with Led Zeppelin and Pink Floyd.

The late 90's living in LA was wild — boy bands and Britney on one side, DJ Z-Trip’s Uneasy Listening Vol. 1, Tupac, Wu-Tang, and The Fugees on the other. Buckcherry, No Doubt, Tool, Green Day. And LA late nights at The Whisky, The Palladium, DYMK (IYKYK).

A whole new world opened when I moved to Atlanta in 2002. It was a watershed moment — trap music was reborn onto the streets of the ATL.

This is a very long-winded way of declaring my love of music and how it has been with me my whole life — the soundtrack to my stories.

So, when I learned that Zernell Gillie — born and raised in Chicago around the same time as me — who experienced music amid gangs and the birth of crack, and relied on song to keep him safe and to express his culture and lived experiences — had created a fragrance line to tell the story of his life lived among music… I was so excited to experience it for myself.

The Discovery Set

7 x 2ml extrait de parfum designed to “capture the soul of sound in scent.”

Disco

Techno

Hip-Hop

House

Jazz

R&B

Blues

This exploratory experience commanded its own soundtrack — a song to match each genre’s vibe.

Here’s what I went with:

Disco – Donna Summer, “Hot Stuff”

Techno – Underworld, “Born Slippy (Nuxx)”

Hip-Hop – Tupac, “Hit ’Em Up”

House – Armand Van Helden, “You Don’t Know Me”

Jazz – Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie & Bud Powell, “Salt Peanuts”

R&B – Ego Ella May, “What You Waiting For”

Blues – Muddy Waters, “Mannish Boy”

And here’s how they wore on my skin.

Disco

Sexy, fresh, citrusy florals layered over groovy amber woods and luminous grapefruit. Hot stuff.

Slightly sweetened by vanilla and patchouli, rooted by cedar and myrrh, with fresh tea and tobacco pulsing through it like a bassline you can’t ignore.

It sparkles. It moves. It expresses itself, freely.

Techno

Electric. Red fruits, bergamot, and pink pepper (I just wish there were more pink pepper). I wasn’t a fan of the opening — it felt sharp at first — but after a few seconds, the shift in timbre and texture took hold.

We went from pulsing opener to a more danceable rhythm of rich leather, amber, and smoky suede.

The dry down is where this fragrance hypnotizes you into a techno-like-trance.

It builds. It evolves. It commits.

Hip-Hop

This drops fruity, boozy, and slightly sweet, with blackcurrant and cognac popping right off the top.

Warm chocolate notes help ground it, keeping it layered and stylized — like the genre it’s aptly named for.

Soft samples of white musk and green notes scratch at the heart, letting it dry down into a smooth and spirited synthesis of scent.

Layered. Textured. Diverse.

House

Not my favorite music genre, but some of my favorite fragrance notes came together to make one heck of a hypnotic scent.

Fig, raspberry, and citrus start this fragrance off, creating a prominent and irresistible top.

There is an energy to this perfume — a pulsating blend of musk, tonka bean, and oud (done beautifully, not overpowering).

I definitely wanted to start dancing to the rhythmic groove of this one.

Jazz

On paper, this one looked complex — and honey notes scare me. There’s a plastic-like smell I sometimes get from honey, so I was skeptical.

I loved the opening. I instantly got the red mandarin and bourbon vanilla. I felt like I was in a softly lit club, with undertones of tobacco, cacao, and honey weaving through the air.

The honey was on the cusp for me — I caught a hint of that note I don’t love — and then, just like jazz, the composition shifted.

Ambergris emerged. Deep. Warm. Resonant. Like the rich, velvety tone of a tenor saxophone.

This scent conveys deep emotion and improvisational versatility — just like its namesake.

R&B

A smooth, seductive tropical burst of citrus and papaya — very sun-kissed and summery — that melts into something warm and intimate.

There’s sweetness from white chocolate and honey, balanced by the balsamic, resinous depth of Opoponax, leaving an almost creamy velvet-like finish.

This scent feels like a slow, late-night jam that lingers long after the music stops playing.

Blues

Boozy and sweet, this fragrance smells like a dimly lit juke joint — and I am obsessed.

Apricot, coffee, and molasses feel sweet and gritty, like the soulful struggle woven into blues music.

I am not an oud lover. But this oud? Not just tolerable — enjoyable. Slightly dark and brooding, but softened by woods and warm brandy.

It sits close to the skin, sultry-like.

Warm. Raw. Intimate.

Final Thoughts

This discovery set was profound joy — a sensory composition of sound and scent that carried and connected me across cultures, decades, melodies, and harmonies of both aroma and memory.

There are definitely some full-bottle-worthy fragrances in this lineup – Disco, Hip-Hop, House, Jazz and Blues, and a few that have earned a place on my wish list.

Thank you to Zernell Gillie for so poetically bringing together music and perfume — two sides of the same coin. Both designed on structure. Rhythm. Composition. Both capable of evoking intense emotion, memory, and mood without saying a single word.

Music has always been a continuous thread throughout my life.

Now I know it can be bottled too.