Two years after her critically acclaimed EP Southern Delicacy, Jai’Len Josey is serving up a fresh music era with “New Girl,” released via Def Jam Recordings.
The Atlanta-born artist flexes her evolving sound and production prowess on the sultry, genre-bending track, fusing R&B and UK Garage into the irresistible single. The Broadway alum doesn’t skimp on the vocals either, riding through intricate runs without missing a beat.
We caught up with her during rehearsals to talk about “New Girl,” stepping into her confident alter ego, and how The Sims inspired her forthcoming debut album, Serial Romantic.
Excerpt from the podcast:
What inspired “New Girl”?
Well, I guess what inspired “New Girl” was just the thought that I feel like I might be little intimidating, but I’m just a teddy bear with a sweet heart. I feel like sometimes that can get misconstrued because I think outside my defense mechanism is to make sure that my face has no emotion on it, but you know, on the inside I’m sweet. I wrote “New Girl” to say it’s okay to be shy, but don’t miss out on your opportunity to come up and shoot your shot at me type stuff. So that’s how “New Girl” was created.
“New Girl” feels like the “sister” to your last EP, Southern Delicacy. What’s the story behind the new album, and was that sense of continuation intentional?
I play Sims, so there are these aspirations for your Sims that you can give them, like lifelong goals. There’s Hopeless Romantic or Kleptomaniac. The one that I never really was able to play was Serial Romantic. And I was like, well, I might as well just pay homage to it. I wrote a song about it at first, before anything. I started realizing, I was going through that my self, just being a serial romantic in the way of giving my heart so many times, so many ways, to people in hopes for them to be genuine and give their heart back, but end up realizing that I need to just complete this cycle by giving all that love back to myself.
So I think it is a sister to Southern Delicacy in the way where Southern Delicacy was me at a younger age and now that I’m 26. I like that Serial Romantic shows what happens when I feel like your frontal lobe connects one more time – like I am actually a grown adult, I have things to do, I have bills to pay, so that’s why I think they are sisters, in a way.
Listen to the full podcast here.
This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.
Featured Photo Credit: Theorian Jackson