ITS Home Edition: JoJo

and truly raw album Good to Know. And Jojo talks about her career, her bad habits, the relationship that inspired Good to Know, what it was like to have a number one song with her first single when she was thirteen, what it's like to still be getting to know herself at twenty nine. There's also some talk about chakras. You know.

There's a track on Good to Know called pet a Light that has one of my favorite lyrics in recent memory, which is good afternoon feeling bad still, I need a prayer and an advil, And of course that's really about recovering after a night out, but during Lockdown, a lot of pretty sober afternoons felt exactly that way. And we started the home edition of Inside the Studio to let you know how the pandemic has impacted the lives of artists and how it's affecting the way they make music.

And Jojo, who released an acoustic version of Good to Know in July that was recorded entirely during Lockdown really gets into all of this with our quarantine correspondent, Jordan Runt Talk. So if you enjoy this episode, be sure to check out the I Heart Radio podcast that Jordan's hosts. It's called Rivals, Music's Greatest Feuds, and it is available wherever you get your podcasts. Hello, everybody, My name is Jordan Runt. Talk. Enough about me. My guest today has

one of the biggest, baddest voices on the planet. She always did, even when she was just a teenager. She had her first hit at age thirteen with two thousand four's Leave Get Out, making her the youngest person at that point to score number one. Her highly publicized battle with a record label kept her out of the spotlight for far too long, but now she's back with a new album, Good to Know. The soulful Sensual collection is her most personal work to date, detailing her journey from

self medication to self love. The music is born out of her own trials, tribulations and uh, I think I've read trips to strip clubs near the recording studio. I believe I'm so thrilled to welcome Jojo. Thank you so much for taking the time. I'm so happy to be

with you. Jordan. Oh my god, so many questions, But I gotta say, the first time I listened to your new record, it was the streaming version, I hit play and the first words I heard you sing on so bad We're look at Me Now, and I just thought, hell, yeah, I mean, you know you can say that again. It's an album with three acts, three chapters. Can you walk

me through each one? How you structured it? Yeah, And and it was definitely intentional that that first lyric, that that kind of opened up the album, because the U when I came into this process of putting the album together and starting writing for it, I was deeply uncomfortable with myself, wanting to get out of my own skin, feeling a lot of shame, feeling a lot of guilt, regret about the way I handled things in my relationship life, and just feeling like I was a bad woman, like

a bad girl, and I was just again ashamed. So I could kind of chronicle the ways in which I manifested that feeling, which is like, you know, kind of uh, drinking too much and going out and just kind of not I'm not showing myself that the most love, And then also like busying myself with with just different distractions, pretty much wanting to get distracted from my self. The middle of the album finds me realizing that I've never really been alone, never truly been single, and I need

that that time. It's really important that as uncomfortable as it may be, that it's a necessary experience. And then at the end kind of realizing that I might make this journey more than once, make the same rotation more than once, but I'm more than capable. A matter of fact, I love myself, I'm strong, I'm resilient, and and just

feeling empowered towards the end of it. So this journey you go through on the album, you were going through that in real time as you were writing these, like when you were started with bad habits and things like that, you really felt that way in that moment when you're writing it totally because I just wanted to stay busy so I wouldn't have to really think about what I was feeling. You know, sometimes we run from our feelings by whatever it may be, by just more and more

and more and more stimulation. And what's been so interesting about this pandemic that we're all living through is that there's no opportunity for distraction. You know, really, we we like are forced to take a look inside and at what's around us. We just can't look away. Has made our vision so clear, And it's just interesting that I was I was kind of already on a journey inward and just um taking a lot of accountability within myself.

I think there was a quote, uh that you said, Well, you said you were looking at yourself instead of reckoning needed to happen. What prompted that reckoning in your life? Honestly, I cheated on my best friend like we were in a relationship, and I I used a lot of the same like coping mechanisms of distraction and attention and all these things, and I just I really messed up. And it was like a catastrophic personal change in my life. When this person totally cut me off. There was no

talking about it. I was just like, Wow, I can't just be out here doing whatever reckless with my heart and other people's. And I was just like, I have to grow up. I have to really look and be like, what kind of person do you want to be? Like? I know I'm a great friend. I know I can be reliable, but like, what type of woman do you really want to be? One of my favorite tracks on the album, I think relations think about You. It's such a raw song. I think is my favorite track on

the album. What does that song means to you? Where did that come from? That came from that the end of that relationship that I was mentioning, um, And it is super raw and like very almost desperately vulnerable. And that's that's just it was kind of like a journal excerpt.

And that was my first time working with my producer Leto and I had been a big fan of what I had heard him do with Paulsy and with his own material, and he's just I think he's a genie is And we connected instantly because I just like had these metaphorical like open wounds, um, because I was just like, how am I ever gonna move on? Like I keep just beating myself up about this. I was still very much in that shame spiral and um, and I hadn't forgiven myself even if he had forgiven me, you know,

the the other person on the other side of the relationship. Oh. And I listened to Small Things, which sort of a follow on from that too, about all the little things that that you know remind you of this other person. That song is incredible because it's just is so relatable. We've all been there, Like you, you can't even sit

up straight because you're thinking of this other person. It's it's so visceral and and sometimes it's just what I love about music in general is that everybody will listen to one song and like relate their own life to it. So it might not be a romantic relationship, but it might be just that you're not over something and you're acting like everything is okay. You know, maybe you had some type of experience that that shook you or changed you and you're just trying to move on from it.

But maybe you hadn't fully dealt with it, and that can be and sometimes something can trigger you out of nowhere and just really make you realize, WHOA this is still very much present in my in my body and my in my heart. You move through it and if the first single from the album man I love especially. I love that the title because it's not really about another man at all. It's about you and what you want exactly. It's me taking a moment and feeling like, okay, yo,

I'm live. I really dig myself right now, I have I'm in process. I'm certainly not perfect, but I do recognize everything that I bring to my own table and if it's more than enough, and I'm saying, I'm really enjoying this time with myself. So if I'm going to break out of this very delicious self partnership that I have going on, then it's gonna really take somebody incredibly special, strong, powerful too to move me. You know, I really enjoy stretching out and having my whole bed right now. So

that's that's it. I was listening to the album and I was trying to figure out and maybe it's both. Is this album more about moving beyond bad habits or is it about accepting yourself laws and all? Or is it both? I think it's both, um because for people with like addictive personalities or people that can just have this tendency to want more or to get really obsessed over things, this is probably a lifelong struggle. Like whether it's but I think we just find healthier ways of

focusing that attention. And so am I going to be like have I removed all bad habits from my life. Hell no, Like I'm still you know, I still be messing up all the time. But um, I just don't I think this this album is just about getting better. It's a beautiful way to put it. You know. I was thinking, just having a career in entertainment has got to be so tough, because I feel like that, more than almost any other career I can think of, you get so much to yourself worth from external sources fans

or critics or label executives. That has to be really tough to deal with. How do you combat something like that? Oh, I don't know. I think you just have to think about yourself as multifaceted and build up those other facets of yourself. And that was something that I had to grow through as well, and it was like really uncomfortable because when you get the messaging that your self worth

is predicated on, it's just it's it's crazy. My first single went number one, you know, it was a number one pop record when I was thirteen, and you can't get any higher than that. So it's it's interesting to kind of like adjust. Okay, so what is success, what is happiness? What is sustainable? Like, who are you when nobody's looking? What are people going to say at your intimate birthday dinner? What are they gonna stay at your funeral?

Like I just started thinking about all these things, like because we are more than numbers and statistics and we're people were I don't know. It took me so many self help books and therapy and all this stuff to really believe that. I think I read an interview where you said, you're more spiritual at this point in your life than you ever thought you would be, Like, well, how did you get to that place? So many people don't so many people knowing it close? Well, I grew

up Catholic, so I love like rituals and tradition. I think that's really beautiful. But I, um so, I had that that background of like knowing a higher power, and I think just through yoga, meditation, I found that these things really really helped me. And the books that I was reading, the podcast I was listening to, the YouTube clips or whatever, it was just really expanding my mind to realize that not only is there not only am I like feeling this and it's something I can't describe,

but there is science behind it. Um So, I think that linking your breath to movement, and I just I think I appreciate the little things more and I find God and all those I try to be in the moment, it just feels better. I want to ask you about the your album cover. I don't like the colors on the album cover. Orange has a great deal of significance to you with chakra, as I believe, Oh God, I am no chakra expert by any freaking means, but I am very interested in the energetic centers of the body.

And I was absinent while I was writing this album, and I really wanted to, like hone in on my um my sensuality, my sexuality, and creativity, and that apparently comes from the same energy center and it's represented by the color orange, and that also represents you know, rebirth, regeneration and creativities. And I've just been really feeling the color orange because I love seed in the sunsets and

the sunrises. It just makes me very happy. My step mom's a raicky master, So I really wanted to ask you about that. As fast a lot of chakra talker on these parts. I bet so you you you drop your album Good to Know in May and then in mid July, you drop an acoustic version. How did that

come about? Was that all recorded in Lockdown or were those early demos or the acoustic was recorded in Lockdown, but the album was all done before that, so we stuck to the plan of releasing it, you know in uh in March, that's when it came out, right, Yeah, yeah, So the the so Good to Know came out right in the beginning of of Lockdown, and then and then

the the acoustic later. But I didn't want to. It was really important to me that I could stay consistent for my fans, Like I told him it was coming out at this time. I wanted to put it out at this time. I like, there's been so much that I can't control within my career that I just I felt like we're all hunkered down, and I know I could use some music right now. But then the acoustic came and I just felt like the songs can stand alone, like just stripped down with a vocal in one instrument.

So I wanted to. I just wanted to express it in a different way, especially since I can't go on tour right now, like nobody can. You mentioned that Good to Know? It was so much about your own relationship with yourself and getting to know yourself and be alone with yourself and quarantine happened. How what have you learned

about yourself in this period? What have I learned? I'm much more nurturing than I thought I was, Like, I really love making food for people, and like, uh, take like keeping my home a certain way, or like dropping cookies off to people. I'm like, I don't know when I turned into this person, but like that brings me so much joy. I realized. I guess that I'm creative in other ways and that being board is actually maybe good for us. Like we don't need to be constantly stimulated.

We don't need to be on social media constantly. I still need to learn that because I do spend too much time to still scrolling. But yeah, there's there's nothing to be afraid of in my own company. At someone I've learned. And you're in California with your mom? What do you what do you both like to do together? Yes, it's been really cool. I try out new recipes on her because I'm super passionate about being in cooking and baking, and um, we walk my dog. Her name is Agathe.

So many people I mean yourself included are cooking, doing puzzles during lockdown. You also filmed the music video which I know, oh my gosh with with Zelda Williams. How did that go down? Was that? I assume you had to do like all of it yourselves, right, Yeah. Zelda

is one of my best friends. We met um when I was fifteen and I played her dad's daughter in r V and we met at the premier and she's like my first l A friend and like kind of taught me how to show me l A pretty much, so even friends for what feels like forever, and I love her. I she's she's a great creative all around, and she had directed a music video for me um on my like on a previous project called Save My Soul.

And because I know her so well and I know how stringent she was being about COVID, I felt like I could feel confident in going over to her house and we literally shot at just me, her and one other person, and we did everything outside. We used natural sunlight. It's just really amazing what you can do with very very little and just a desire. It looked incredible. I Mean,

I I'd seen them and I had no idea. I assumed you made them like months and months in advance before all this went down, and then I like I realized the backstory. It was just like three of you. It's incredible, It's absolutely amazing. It feels nice to find ways around things that are a little bit challenging, you know, I mean, are very challenging, are very challenging. Yet have you been writing a lot of music during this time?

I've been writing some Christmas songs. Actually interesting to be you know, writing I see cozy fireplace songs when it's like blazing outside Christmas in July action exactly. Um. So I've been been doing that and it's been I've been writing more poetry than full formed songs, and that's been nice because I used to do that a lot as a kid. And it's just a good exercise. Um and kind of like a good brain purge. Do you consider yourself a homebody? Like? Do you get more inspiration looking

inward or looking outward? Um? I I can find inspiration almost anywhere, Like I could answer, I do like to be around people, though I like to be in I love traveling. I love being on the road. I missed that. But I'm also not going to make an excuse as if I can't be inspired unless i'm, you know, in another place that I'm trying to trying to find the vibes. I loved your special quarantine version of Leave Get Out

Chill Stay In that was inspired by UM. I was doing a live stream and one of my fans like wrote in the comments it was like, stay in right now song to the UM, you know tune of Leave Get Out, And I'm like, ah ha, that's so smart. It's like, yeah, there's something there. So I just went ahead and it wrote the rest of it, and it just feels good to you know, to laugh. I'm glad some people got to smile out of it. I feel like your fans are more fiercely loyal than most because

you know everything you've been through. They're incredible. Like, what's it been like staying connected to them throughout all of this quarantine lockdown stuff? It's been, I mean freaking awesome. It's it's like how we've stayed connected through everything. We've a lot of us have grown up together and we're going through a lot of um the same things in our respective places of where we live. And I'm just

trying to figure out life. I've been listening to and watching some of the covers you've been posting on social media. D'Angelo TLC. I think one time you just sang the word hello, and it's still made my jaw drop. Uh expects the question, what are you doing to keep your voice that strong? It's amazing you're doing warm ups every day. You're doing like zoom sessions with a vocal coach. Oh, thank you so much. I have been getting back to basics and kind of like doing scales at the piano.

But I don't warm up every day before I record. I do some vocalizations if you will, um. But I've also just been going back and listening to some of my favorite singers and trying to impersonate them. That's how I started. When I was a kid, I tried. I tried to sound like Aretha Franklin or Whitney Houston and Mariah Carey. And now I'm finding that same passion for like, for recreating sounds. I saw that a couple of months back. You spoke on a panel for the Grammy Museum about

any Winehouse, one of my all time favorite artists. What does she mean to you? Did you ever get a chance to meet her or perform with her. I never got a chance to meet her. And I remember when

I discovered her first album, Frank. It was after Back to Black had already come out, and I think it was after she passed away, and I was the same age that she was when she wrote it and put it out, and I was just like, Yo, this girl is killing me softly with her words, like she is drumming my pain right now, Like I just feel everything that she was saying. Um, And she just had a way of Uh. She was so vivid with her storytelling and so raw, and I just love I loved everything

about how giving she was with her artistry. And it's just so bringing unfair what fame can do to uh, you know, a sensitive soul that is just pure and Yeah. But but her music continues to just blow my mind and it's something that can continue unraveled, like you know when you when you go back to it and listen to it at different years in your life, there's still so much to take from it. I think I haven't thought about that with Frank and Good to Know. I

see them as as very similar. I mean, some of her songs, like I've heard Love as Blinds or or take the Box. I mean, the lyrics are so funny, they're so brutal and bruising at points, but you just want to you feel like you know, or you want to give her a hug. It's it's incredible. Yes, that's such a good point. I mean, she's a type of

writer that I look up to. She's so inspirational and aspirational, and I think she kind of continues in a line of female songwriters like Joni Mitchell, who were never concerned about looking uh like the perfect woman whatever that you know is thought to be, but like meaning, uh they were they mess up there, corny, They're hungry for more, they're dissatisfied, they're irrational there, you know, all these things that we can be while we're also worthy, you know

what I mean. So I just loved I loved that all of those things existed within her writing. Was there a lightning bolt moment for you when you knew that you didn't want to just be a musical appreciator, you

want to be somebody who made it yourself. I don't know if there was a lightning moment, but um, I just remember being in the living room and watching my favorite divas on the TV on like vach One, Diva's Live or something like that, Like I want that, like I want to have big hair and I want to wear a little dress that I want to say um. And it was you know Mariah and Whitney and Selene uh Tina Turner, Shaka Khan, Donna Summer, just all these

incredible singers. And I've been singing professionally since i was six, Like that's when I started. Beside when I think I got my first check from I did like musical theater or something. So it's hard to think back and remember a specific lightning moment, but shoot, once once I was struck, I was just like, you know, you can't get me away from this. I just love this. I forgot to ask you met Mariah, what was that? Like? That was

so special for me? And it's really just through her actions and how giving and generous she was with me and the people around her. It taught me about um, how you can be larger than life and legendary but

be so grounded and down to earth. And the way she made me feel was she was so present with me, she was so um, so kind, and I want to give you know young artists, younger artists who look up to me that same feeling that she gave me because she made me, she encouraged me even just with her actions and what she had to say, and I just ideally appreciate her. Two younger artists at their sensitive souls, who are you know, really dying to get in the

music industry. What is your advice for them? Well, first, I would want them to get clear on why they want to be in the music industry, Like the music industry is gross, Like you know what I mean, But music is music is awesome, but the industry is whack. So you have to, like a do you want it for fame? Because if you do that is not sustainable. You have to really really have a thick skin and

um and an unwavering belief in yourself. It can waiver, but you have to have a resilience, you know, and I understand that feeling when it's like, Okay, if I don't do this, I'll never forgive myself or I'll never start stop questioning what I what could have been had I not just chosen a quote unquote more guaranteed thing. Nothing in life is guaranteed. So if you love music. You can create a path for yourself. There is there's no one way to be successful. Um, you don't need

to sign to a major label. You can do it yourself. Are so many different avenues in which you can build something really substantial and lucrative. And I would just encourage people to hone in on what it is that makes them special, unique, and be as much of yourself as you can, because that's what other human beings are going to connect to. Like that resonates in a way that

we can't even describe. Sometimes, Was that Bernard, that Peter's quote, I feel like everybody else, what have they need you for? Something like that? I love that it's so true. I mean, was there ever a time when you were going through all the stuff you're going through. I don't even want to get into it, but that you ever thought, you know, what, the hell with it, this isn't worth it, I'm going to go do something else? Or did you never? Was

that never even an option for you? You always knew that that this was it, this is what you were going to do. It's not that it wasn't worth it for me. It's that there was a time where I thought that I would not be able to ever put out music again because of the contract I was under, I didn't own my voice. So I felt like, okay, realistically, you know when we start thinking realistically, where like okay, well maybe I have to figure out something from my

life because what am I going to do? Stay frozen? Like, no, I can't. I have to do something. So I was like, okay, like maybe, you know, I'll go to college, which sounds like a great idea, get a degree, and then maybe I'll become a teacher or maybe you know, like maybe I'll get deeper into songwriting and i'll you know, write songs for other artists and both would be a totally cool, fine thing to do. Um, I could have combined my passions for um, travel and culture and done something with

that and I would have made away. But again, I would have always wondered like who would I have been if I had continued to develop as an artist? And uh, I'm glad that I had people around me who didn't let me believe that my dreams were over. You know, and this year you want to gram me with p H Morton for say, so that that must have been pretty damn validating. That's incredible, Congratulations, thank you. I'm so thankful to PJ. And I just love how things work out.

It's just it was a very validating moment because I just followed my heart with this one. It was not like any uh, industry masterminding going on. It wasn't like, you know what, let's take this artist and this artist and get them on a smash track together. It was just like, I love p J. There's we have this mutual respect, and he sent me a song. I loved it and people really loved it too, So that felt really nice to be like, sometimes you can just do

what feels right and it can work. Congratulations. What is next for you? You've got this Christmas project coming up? What else he working on? Like you're really excited about? I'm proud of. I have the deluxe version of Good to Know and a couple amazing surprise features that I'm really hype about. Um and I have a video coming for the single off of the deluxe And so the standard version of the album was only nine songs, and some of my fans were like, what the hell is

this nine songs? So now it's like a complete this is a full suban and h A, I'm just super hype about these songs, like they're they're so good. So that coming. Um, and I'm gonna start putting things together for my next project, Like I'm just even putting together a vision board and like some some things, some goals that I want to reach and start putting together my

dream team of collaborators. Can you talk a little bit more about who you want to work with or is it still you don't want to you don't want to speak it it's like superstitious. I kind of I kind of do feel a little bit superstitious. I just want to get in the room with these people and uh and really camp out and just see what we can do. I know you have a birthday coming up in December, a milestone one. I had the same one myself two Decembers ago. Yeah, some of December maybe also. Um, it's

always a good time for reflection. I was wondering, what did the twelve year old who wrote Keep On, Keeping On think they'd be doing it thirty? Oh wow, at thirty. When I was twelve, I probably thought that I would be Oh god, I don't know, thirty sounded so distant and old, you know what I mean. And now that

I'm here. I'm like, yo, I'm such a baby. So I probably thought that I would be like Beyonce, whatever that means, and and that I think I thought I would have been like the head of a label or something, which I am. Actually I do have my label clover and so I think the only difference is that I thought i'd be married with children. Um, and I'm not Beyonce, but I never will be. I'm Joe Joe, I'm Jooe

and is pretty dope. It's pretty damn awesome. I don't know if you're you're married or have kids, but I just now it feels like something that, Wow, I can't believe that I thought that i'd be They're already. Yeah, thirty seems so old when I was twenty five. Now I'm thirty two, Like, oh oh oh, now I feel better than ever. So I hope that I just continue to feel this way, Like if j Lo is any example of how you can thrive, like just even in

any decade. Shoot, I mean, she's the prototype. So listen to twelve year old jo Joe, keep on keeping on. He exactly, Oh Joe, My my last question I've been asking everybody this is My last question, what's the first thing you want to do when this pandemic is over? If you could snap your fingers and if everything go back to normal right now, what would you do if people trips? You want to take people, you want to hug, restaurants, you want to go to What is it for you? Oh?

I wanna go travel, I want to go see I want to take a friend's trip. I want to get like all my friends together, um from from the East Coast, from l A, from Australia in Europe. I want us all to meet somewhere in the middle, like whether it's West Africa, or whether we go to you know, New Zealand, or I just want to go somewhere when whether you meet up in Hawaii. I would really really love to be on a beach somewhere and have some great food, some great drinks and great company. And I would really

love to travel. Yeah, Judge, thank you so much for your time. Your music has been such a pleasure. I thank you. It's been a really fun things. We hope you enjoyed this episode of Inside the Studio Home Edition, a production of I Heart Radio. For more episodes of Inside the Studio and other shows, from i heart Radio. Check out the i heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.