Jessie J

Jessie J is a BRIT award winning and Grammy nominated British singer-songwriter known for her seismic vocals, confessional lyrics, empowering attitude, dynamic stage presence, genre-blending music and wickedly sharp sense of humour. Having sold over 20 million records worldwide, she first rose to international fame with her debut album, Who You Are (2011), which delivered six Top 10 smashes including ‘Price Tag,’ ‘Domino,’ and ‘Who You Are.’ She went on to score other massive hits including the Diamond-selling single ‘Bang Bang’. Over the years, she has established herself as a versatile artist, seamlessly fusing pop, R&B, and soul. Her subsequent albums, including Alive (2013), Sweet Talker (2014), and R.O.S.E. (2018), showcase her artistic evolution. Jessie J is also recognized for her work as a songwriter, penning hits for other artists (Miley Cyrus ‘Party In The USA’), which has also been awarded diamond status. And for her participation in television shows such as The Voice UK and The Singer (China), where she won first place in 2018 with 1.2 billion viewers watching the live final.

Now Jessie J returns in 2025 with her captivating new chapter in music. It’s been eight years since the Essex-born singer released her last record, R.O.S.E. (2018), and the intervening period has featured both lows but triumphs too. After touring R.O.S.E. around the world throughout 2018, Jessie J returned to the studio with Grammy winning producer Ryan Tedder (Beyoncé, Blackpink, Taylor Swift) to begin work on its follow up, but in 2019, she was in a serious car accident which affected Jessie J’s larynx to move up, and cause vocal pain, Meniere’s disease, and acid reflux. “It was the weirdest year because I knew it was happening for this spiritual reason; to make me reflect but also it was the most frustrating experience because my outlet is to sing,” Jessie J recalls. She returned to the studio in 2021, but a miscarriage once more forced Jessie J to put things on pause. Then, towards the end of that year, Jessie J met her partner, former basketball player and now basketball coach, Chanan Colman. The couple became pregnant, and Jessie J gave birth to their much-adored son, Sky, in 2023.

It was in 2024, that Jessie J was finally able to start work on sixth solo studio album. She got back into the studio with someone new Jesse Boykins III (Vic Mensa / Logic / Rejjie Snow), to write fresh new music after her recent life experiences, and focused more on the lyrics and the journey of Greif to finding joy. and then at 6 months pregnant decided to part ways very amicably with her former record company and joined an exciting new venture, Darcus Artists Partnerships (D.A.P), run by Darcus Beese and Ted Cockle who Jessie J worked with in the UK when she was first signed to Republic/ Island. “Although I was signed in the US to Republic, it was Ted that said ‘Do It Like A Dude’ should be the first single; it was Darcus who put the ‘Who You Are’ track listing together.” Darcus rang Jessie J one day “very randomly, like, Yo, where the fuck are you at?” she laughs of that initial meeting. For Jessie J, it’s a wonderful full-circle moment back to her beginnings, but for all three of them, it’s about making and approaching music in a very different way. “I think we’re learning so much from each other and I love that they’re doing things so differently. The industry needed to change, and I think they’re part of that change.”

Collating the music Jessie J has composed over the past few years has been an ongoing conversation between the three of them; the end result, says Jessie J, is a pretty perfectly balanced offering that reflects old-skool alt-R&B, upfront pop and more contemporary, traditional R&B, the space that Jessie J feels happiest, and the lyrics and vocals do the talking equally.

The record opens with No Secrets that covers the honest view of parts of the last eight years of Jessie J’s life, specifically touching on her personal loss. “This song is super personal but I think, I hope, it can also be relative to anyone’s life,” says Jessie J of the song that looks at loss but also tackles the impact of social media on all of our lives. “Whether you’re in the public eye or a human being on the internet – specifically when it comes to comments – whatever trauma you go through, everything’s made into a joke with very little empathy. We all have to face it and when you’re going through a shit time, it’s unrelenting.” It’s not, says Jessie J, a song she wrote to top the charts. She didn’t want to return with a loud bang; this is more a soft, open, thoughtful comeback. “It doesn’t feel like a massive hit; it's more an invitation to come and sit with me and hear something that I’m thinking and feeling but also what’s been going on in my head for the past couple of years. There’s a lot of vulnerability but at the same time I know that’s what makes me me. I’m a very honest person; I say it how it is, and I share with the world a lot of things that most people don’t. The music has really gotten me though.”

Elsewhere, the exuberant Tedder throwback 'Living My Best Life' came to Jessie J while driving through LA, the best of Whitney and Prince rebounding about her jeep. It’s a track that sounds as though it’s stepped straight off the set of Pretty In Pink. “I said to Ryan, I want to have an opening that has movement. Like Domino has, ‘I’m feeling sexy and free-e-e’. I love staccato and the sense of moving upwards so Living My Best Life has that same feeling. It feels timeless, classic, '80s. It makes you want to dance around.”

Jessie’s J’s personal favourite is the robust show-stopper 'California.' “I was listening to Dr. Dre when we made this. I phoned Ryan on the way to the studio and said, ‘Imagine I’m coming in right now with a three-piece suit and a cane. Like Liza in Cabaret, like a pimp. I want, like, entrance music. Opening a show vibe’. He’d made the beat by the time I got there, and it just fell out. It’s my favourite song and I cannot wait to perform it. That song sums up my feeling when I’m in LA. I’ve got the windows down, I’m going to the gym, just happy and free and optimistic.”

Produced by Mike Woods [Big Sean, Ciara] 'The Award Goes To' has built momentum already online, where Jessie J has teased it on her social platforms for a while. It’s peak Jessie J stop-the-clocks power ballad moment. “It’s the Who You Are, the Big White Room of this album,” she nods. “It’s for the singer in me. It makes me feel so powerful when I sing it. It’s addressed to anybody that wants to take from you. Have it. Take it. I’m good to lose. And I mean that. I’m good to lose the disingenuous energy or that toxicity that you have in order to win. I want to do it authentically and I want to do it myself. Finding my dignity and my worth and my power is the only award that I need to feel valid, ever.”

Recorded over the past five years in LA, her forthcoming album released later this year was born out of feeling, mood and emotion rather than specific musical references, Jessie J says she would wake up early in the morning, a light frost on the ground, head to the gym, have a workout, grab a smoothie and head home – “so rejuvenated. And I’d get ready for the studio, get in my car, wind my windows down and ride to the studio feeling like, "I'm a boss and write a song like California.” Other days were different; during those moments she might reflect on personal loss, the grief Jessie J has endured over the past few years; her security guard Dave who died in 2018, and SBTV’s Jamal Edwards, who died in 2022. The miscarriage, too, of course. “I’d wake up, miss the gym, miss Dave and Jamal desperately, sit in my garden, have a cry, put no makeup on, put on my baggy sweats and go to the studio and write I’ll Never Know Why, which is the saddest song ever,” she says. “I’ve played it to a few people and all of them, all men, have sobbed when I played it to them.”

Whatever the mood of the song, there’s a strong sense of looseness, insight, freedom through the album; it’s the sound of an artist looking out into the world rather than gazing solely within. It’s not a reintroduction as such, but it’s a reset, a renewal, a reemergence for one of this country’s most revered musicians. “Honestly my goal for this album is just to enjoy it and for other people to take what they need and want from it. I want to have fun with the people I love, create some amazing memories and give a gift of music that can survive the test of time to the world.”