FEATURE: Spotlight: Jai'Len Josey — Music Musings & Such

FEATURE:

Spotlight

Jai'Len Josey

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I think that this year…

is going to be a standout year for Jai'Len Josey. A tremendous artist who I feel will gift us with an album very soon, there are a couple of chats from last year that I want to get to. If you have never heard of her, then I hope that they provide you some background and detail. I am starting out with her interview with Shifter. The interview does actually review the title of an album that Jai'Len Josey is working on. From Atlanta, Georgia, this is an amazing talent who also works on stage and screen. Someone who is also one of the most talented artists coming through. Even if Jai'Len Josey has been releasing music for a while now, I still think that she is upcoming and breaking through. Maybe not yet at a stage where everyone knows her:

“When you’re in your own space, you don’t see yourself as much as other people may see you. The way you treat yourself is harsher than other people would expect. So when I hear somebody tell me they see big things for me, it makes me feel like, okay, maybe I need to chill. I can breathe for a little bit and continue on this long but rewarding journey”, she said.

Josey named India Shawn and Mnelia as fellow artists who deserve more shine. She is also a fan of Victoria Monét, whose three wins at the 2024 Grammy Awards felt like a victory for all “the underdogs”. Like Monét, Josey pens songs for other singers. She co-wrote Ari Lennox’s hit single “Pressure”, which samples Shirley Brown’s “Blessed Is the Woman (With a Man Like Mine)”. The song peaked at #66 on the US Billboard Hot 100, and #2 on the US Billboard R&B/Hip-Hop Airplay chart.

In 2017, Josey played Pearl Krabs in Spongebob Squarepants: The Broadway Musical, alongside Stephanie Hsu and Ethan Slater. The production earned twelve Tony Awards nominations. Though she subsequently left Broadway to focus on her music career, Josey remains open to acting.

“I never really gave up on it. I just knew that it wasn’t my dream at that moment. I needed to leave Broadway to put out [Illustrations]. I would go back to Broadway if it was the right thing for me. My life was gearing up to be on Broadway. I was in the Youth Ensemble of Atlanta. There’s a performing arts high school here in Atlanta called Tri-Cities High School, and you’re either in musical theatre or you’re in sports. OutKast came from Tri-Cities, Kandi Burruss from Xscape”, she said.

“What Broadway enhanced was performance. I love an orchestral atmosphere, watching these people play their instruments, the horn section. Broadway definitely widened my love for live music”, she added.

Josey’s latest single “New Girl”, takes a different direction from her previous outputs. She substitutes the symphonic production which is so prevalent to her catalogue for an understated blend of UK Garage, R&B and Techno. Josey’s signature vocal runs and melodies remain. The song structure (verse, pre-chorus, chorus, verse, pre-chorus, chorus) compliments the single’s experimental production and short-length. The result is a unique listening experience with insane replay value.

“Serial Romantic is not necessarily [about] me being a serial dater. It’s [about] giving my heart out multiple times, being naive in the beginning. You come to this realization that giving your heart out so many times is ultimately abusive to yourself.”

“My mom is from Detroit. They had this thing called Ghettotech. What’s cool about Ghettotech, UK Garage, Trance, House, is that ability to get you to dance. Even though [New Girl] is different from Illustrations, it still is reminiscent of its essence. This new set of music is reminiscent of my mother, me being Southern, and trying to mash that together to create something different. The [first] five, six songs on my new album are all high-tempo. People have to dance when they press play. I like to think of Whitney Houston’s ‘I Want to Dance With Somebody’”, she explained.

Josey’s upcoming album, Serial Romantic will explore dating, self-discovery, and decentring romance.

“Serial Romantic is not necessarily [about] me being a serial dater. It’s [about] giving my heart out multiple times, being naive in the beginning. You come to this realization that giving your heart out so many times is ultimately abusive to yourself. You need to give your heart back to yourself. The outro was originally entitled ‘Selfish’. It’s called ‘I believe’ now, and says that I need to give the love that I’ve been giving to everybody—family, [romantic] relationships, work—I need to give that back to myself”, she said.

Like previous releases, Josey will be the sole performer on Serial Romantic.

“I’ve been doing so many guest appearances on other people’s songs. I don’t have any features [on Serial Romantic], and not because I don’t want them, but because I still feel like I need to plant my feet in this industry. I need to solidify who I am so that by the next album, I’m bringing people into my sound, not the other way around”, she concluded”.

I thought 2023’s Southern Delicacy was her debut album, as it runs at eleven tracks. One cannot really class it as an E.P. However, that is what Jai'Len Josey views it as – or the press do at least. In any case, an upcoming debut album is gaining a lot of buzz. This is an artist that you definitely need on your radar. For Vibe, Josey explains and explores why a serial romantic is not about being a serial dater. Something that many people might have assumed with the title:

“Serial Romantic’ means being genuine each time that you give your heart to someone,” Jai’Len shared. “Of course, it sounds like being a serial dater, but it’s more so about giving your heart in hopes that it’ll be returned back to you, loved and cared for. Honestly, it takes a toll on the body. At the end of the album, I come to the realization that I really just need to end the cycle and give my heart back to myself.”

In comparison to her breakout EP, Southern Delicacy, Jai’Len confessed that they are two sides of the same coin. Explaining, “‘Southern Delicacy’ is about my story, [my] background, how I am, where I come from [whereas] ‘Serial Romantic’ is the Lover Girl [in me].”

As a proclaimed lover, she’s learned that it really comes down to two key elements: time and grace. “The biggest lesson I learned in love is just to take my time, and more so with myself. I really have not gotten the gist of being a lover in a relationship, but I’ve gotten the gist of loving myself. I just realized that I’ve got to take my time with myself. I got to give myself grace,” she shared.

On Serial Romantic, the blossoming phenom collaborated with hitmakers such as Tricky Stewart, The-Dream, and Theron Thomas—something she considers to be a “blessing.”

“Tricky is a gift to me, a father figure in a way. He instills so much love within me, and he teaches me not only how to be an amazing writer, performer, and singer, but also a producer. I love sitting in on sessions just seeing how he works in that space so that I can better myself!” she exclaimed.

Jai’Len continued, “As it comes to the album, he took it on as if it were his own and saw so much within me. I was more grateful for the fact that he even saw a vision before I could. We were coming from L.A. with broken pieces of the album, and he literally took it and put it together so beautifully. I’m very grateful for Tricky. [Also] for all the people who are on the album, but yes, grateful for Tricky.”

As she enters her debut era, she’s most excited for fans to experience her growth and be part of the ride. “This is only a piece of my story,” she teased. “I want them to hear how far I’ve come sonically [and feel seen]. I feel like as a Black woman, I love Black women, and I see so much of myself [in] every woman that I come across. I feel like it’s my duty to narrate those stories as just an artist in general. I want [fans] to know that I dedicate so much into narrating these stories and these experiences that we usually don’t get to hear.”

The question remains: has the self-proclaimed “serial romantic” been successful in love? Well, that’s one secret we’ll never tell. If you’re really looking for answers, life often inspires art— so we encourage you to turn to the music”.

I am going to end with an interview from Uproxx as it offers answers and insights that we did not get with the other interviews. I feel Jai’Len Josey is an artist we will be hearing a lot more from. I am not sure whether the U.S. artist will play in the U.K. and if there are going to be tour dates. I guess they will be announced around the release of Serial Romantic. I think the album was slated for a release last year, so I am not sure what the expected date is right now:

“Who or what inspired you to take music seriously?

I was really loud, so it wasn’t more so what inspired me, [but] what was going to get all of this energy out of me. I was just very obnoxious, very loud. My mom saw it and decided to put me in different classes growing up. I was in the youth ensemble of Atlanta. My high school, Tri Cities High School, had so many music programs for music theater, so that’s how it was. I was always inspired by what my mom did back in the day. She worked at So So Def and LaFace Records for a minute. I was always inspired by that I’ll say, but I was really just loud. I didn’t really know I could hold a tune until somebody told me that I could hold a tune.

You get 24 hours to yourself to do anything you want, with unlimited resources: What are you doing? And spare no details!

I am buying a whole new wardrobe, booking a first class flight to Japan, buying souvenirs… Dang, the flight to Japan will take up all my time. Yes, a long flight. Let’s go back: Wardrobe, a new hairstyle, I’m gonna just get my whole thing together. I’ll get my lashes, my hair, a facial. I’m gonna pay my bills. I’ll buy a town house or a condo or a house. I could buy a house and pay it off that day. 24 hours? I will make the time to do all of that. I don’t need to do a house viewing, I don’t need none of that. I would make it happen in that day. Basically, I would do all the things that I need to do because an unlimited amount of money right now will be heavenly.

What is the best song you’ve ever made?

There’s an unreleased song that I have called “Stupid Man Of Mine” and it’s been floating around because I gave it to someone. It always finds its way back to me, and they’re like, “Oh my gosh, this is, this is you?” or “I heard the song being played in the studio.” I was truly in love with the person that I was talking about, but I didn’t realize that the relationship was fueling some of the best lyrics I’ve ever put down on paper. I was told that they’re keeping my voice on the record, so it’ll be out. It just won’t be published by me. It’ll be out by somebody else, a producer who wants to put it on their compilation album.

You are throwing a music festival. Give us the dream lineup of 5 artists that will perform with you and the location where it would be held.

I gotta do it in my hometown, I’m having the festival in Atlanta. I’m bringing out Victoria Monét, SZA, and Brandy as the headliners. Durand Bernarr — and you know how they have different stages? I’ll have Samaria joy on the jazz stage. We’ll have a special guest of Mariah The Scientist, because I love her down, and Summer Walker. [They’ll] do a joint set because they’ll feed off of each other.

What would you be doing now if it weren’t for music?

I would be a marine biologist. I was really good at science and I loved water. I love water, I live by a lake. I won the science fair when I was in high school. If [singing] wasn’t my lane, it would be marine biologist. I love bioluminous. I like those type of things. I like jellyfish, things like that.

If you could see five years into the future or go five years into the past, which one would you pick and why?

I don’t want to go back five years into the past because I like Jai’Len with her frontal lobe fully developed, so I don’t want to do that. I will probably go five years into the future.

What’s one piece of advice you’d go back in time to give to your 18-year-old self?

Stop eating those freaking dumplings. I was living in New York, and I was living above a dumpling shop, and I was going H.A.M. I feel like now I work out so much just to avenge my younger self and I’m just like all of this could have been avoided if I just would have stopped eating those dang dumplings. If we’re playing yeah, but if we’re being serious, I probably would just tell her to have patience or be understanding and grateful of the stepping stone you are on right now because a plethora will come. More will come now.

It’s 2050. The world hasn’t ended, and people are still listening to your music. How would you like it to be remembered?

Therapy. I want it to be remembered in a therapeutic way. I would want people to immediately feel the frequencies that run through the songs when they listen to my music. It has helped me with therapy. Music has been my therapy, so I would hope and pray that in 2050 people are also feeling healed by my music”.

I will end there. Starting this year strong, Housewife is the latest single from a staggering artist that everyone needs to connect with. I am looking forward to Serial Romantic and seeing whether Jai'Len Josey will be touring and where that takes her. She has a big fanbase already, though there are some corners that do not yet know about her. There is no doubt that Jai'Len Josey is…

HOUSEWIFE

A legend in the making.

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