Words by Kayleigh Watson
They say the early bird catches the worm, and surprisingly bright-eyed and full of zest, Jae Stephens is ready to go at the top of a midweek day. It’s 9am and she’s already been out of the house and back, getting her steps in early by dodging Los Angeles suburban mums on their morning school run. Bubbly, vivacious and a certified go-getter, the Dallas-born talent has never been one to wait around for permission to make her mark, especially in regard to her career, and today is a rare, slow Wednesday for Stephens, whose schedule has been booked and busy in the way a rising pop star hopes it will be.
Stephens kickstarted this hectic period 18 months ago with the addictively slinky R&B-pop of ‘Wet’, the bodacious lead track from her third EP, ‘Sellout’. A second instalment, ‘Sellout II’, dropped this summer and, in between, she jumped on the second half of British girl group FLO’s North American tour. She describes the latter stint as “a learning curve” – something that, having been in the industry since her teens, has been a minute since she experienced.
“I barely remember it – I low-key blacked out,” says Stephens of her first night on the tour in Chicago. “I went out like a nervous, excited puppy – I was out of breath and winded by the end of the first song because I was like, ‘Bitch, just run out there and do it.’ It was like I was completing a dare!” By the end of each show, she was drained. “A lot of lessons were learned on that stage, which I struggle with. I like to be perfect at things the first time I do them, which is just not realistic.”
More exposure therapy under the spotlight beckons as Stephens prepares for her debut headline show in London later this month, bringing her sweet yet sour brand of pop and R&B to British shores. Satisfyingly, the sold-out show marks a full-circle moment in the city that started it all for her.
“I’m not the smooth and sexy seductress with R&B songs – bitch, I’m goofy! And I like to have fun!”
“London is where I became a woman,” says Stephens, who upped sticks from her balmy Californian home to the grey skies of Blighty straight out of high school, aged 18. “I was obsessed with it by way of One Direction, I’m not gonna lie to you,” says Stephens, whose fandom fixation garnered her a Tumblr-famous following of over 200,000, for whom she would also post cover songs. “From there, it snowballed into wanting to understand a whole other culture [and] music scene. I just think it was really meant to be.”
It didn’t take long for her to fall in love with British dry wit and offbeat fashion, and the chaos of the Tube, while she also met her management and participated in her first-ever songwriting sessions in the city. “It definitely felt like my coming-of-age movie,” the 27-year-old says of the two years she lived in the UK. “Then I started dating a British guy, and I was living my Wattpad dream!”
Even after moving back to LA, Stephens would return to the UK each year to hone her songwriting chops, writing for herself and others including Bryant Barnes, Sharylen, and Khamari. It wasn’t long before she found herself in the studio with superstar songwriter MNEK, whom she’d first heard on BBC Radio 1 during late-night essay-writing stints. Starstruck, it was one of the first times she felt out of her depth as a young artist in the studio.
“Back then, it was very hard because I wanted everybody in the room to think, ‘Wow, she’s really good, she came up with the concept, the melody, the title and this crazy bar, then she got on the mic’. I wanted to be the valedictorian of the studio.” Penning her first song aged eight and self-releasing music in her teens, Stephens’ headstrong resolve came from a “fuck it, I’ll do it myself attitude” that was born from necessity, meaning she had to learn to trust others creatively and process her self-imposed pressure to perform as a rookie.
And while ‘F**k It I’ll Do It Myself’ was also the befitting title of her self-produced debut EP, nowadays she’s happy for others to take control or chime in as the mood dictates. “I’m really happy to play either front or backseat driver,” says Stephens, whose trajectory has seen her since pen tracks for artists like Jennifer Lopez, Normani and Sinéad Harnett. “Like, this is not a real job; we should be having fun. We’re just writing fucking songs – it’s not that deep!”
Watching how other people work in the studio slowly led her to ‘Body Favors’, the second track taken from ‘Sellout’. Underpinned by a sludgy bassline, honeyed vocals and playful melody, the track’s mischievous lyrics (“Sour on top but it’s sweet below / But how many licks til you reach it though?”) encapsulate what had come to be Stephens’ quintessential sound after struggling to find her own on the electro-tinged R&B of her first EP and its contemplative successor, ‘High My Name Is’.
“I say some things that are a bit out of pocket sometimes [but] in lyric form, I can get away with it more”
“I just felt like [‘Body Favors’] was me personified. That doesn’t make sense,” she pauses. “Songified? It had so much character and spunk and was a little sexy and a little sweet and was tongue-in-cheek, and it was mildly appropriate without being vulgar. It was upbeat but wasn’t too squeaky; it had edge but wasn’t too dark. It walked such a specific line, and I remember thinking ‘I have no idea who we would send this song to, I can’t think of anyone who fits all of these opposing boxes… but I can!”
Hitting that perfect recipe pushed Stephens to refocus on herself and intentionally pursue a career as an artist. “When I wrote that one, it definitely made me feel like I had an identity, because I was definitely strung [out] with that a bit, musically,” she says. “I’m not the smooth and sexy seductress with R&B songs – bitch, I’m goofy! And I like to have fun!”
Case in point is recent outing ‘Boyfriend Forever’, the first single to drop from her latest EP, ‘Total Sellout’, an amalgamation of ‘Sellout’ and ‘Sellout II’, topped with a handful of new tracks. Seamlessly blending R&B with ’90s hip-hop for a flourish of new jack swing, the track sees Stephens line up her next prospect after her current one gets her down. “It’s just like waiting for the bus,” Stephens quips in the track. “Give it five minutes, another one’s coming.”
“There was an argument that was happening, and I just remember thinking ‘I’m not going to argue, I really don’t care,” says Stephens. ‘Why get emotional? He won’t be my boyfriend forever.’ And then I was like, ‘Ooh, that kind of eats!’ It definitely came from reaching that point of ‘this isn’t even a big deal, this is gonna be over in a week’ – and it was. As soon as I wrote it down, it was over in five days!”
While the song began from a place of “not allowing any negativity” about a failed relationship, it was her co-writer, Dallas Caton, misinterpreting the meaning as already having a new replacement lined up that sparked the mischief in Stephens and helped steer the narrative to somewhere new. “I just want to write things that make me laugh. I say some things that are a bit out of pocket sometimes [but] putting them in lyric form, I can get away with it more. I really enjoy being the villain in my music because I rarely get to be the villain in real life, because I think I’m a very level-headed person. I try to be very kind, but I’m also quick to dish out what I get. Like, I will go to hell, but I’m gonna do it in a song!”
Since ‘Body Favors’, getting into character has been a conscious choice for Stephens, which has completely liberated her from the studio to the stage. “The easiest way for me to do that was, of course, with some humour. ‘Oh, I’m a sellout.’ ‘Oh, I’m signed to a major label, and I’m releasing pop music.’ Like, lol.” (Stephens is signed to Insecure creator and multihyphenate Issa Rae’s label Raedio, which is in a partnership with Def Jam Recordings.) She describes this hyperreal embodiment as a “confidence exercise”, one that “has become less of a character, and has become me doing it for real”.
“There should be a space for Black women to be seen as sexy or sexual without it being so brash”
Despite being an artist who writes with her tongue in her cheek, Stephens is well aware that Black female artists are subject to a different kind of scrutiny than their white peers when it comes to being sexy. It’s part of the reason why she prefers to lean into humour with her own music, without being too crude. “Black women are so overly sexualised from such a young age, I think that there should be a space for us, especially in music, to be seen as sexy or sexual without it being so brash. I was allowed to listen to songs like ‘Rock The Boat’ by Aaliyah as a young girl, but growing up, I was like, ‘What’s this girl singing about?’ I think that makes for better songwriting when you let people guess a little bit.”
Stephens sees the success of “late bloomer” pop artists like Charli XCX, Sabrina Carpenter, and Chappell Roan, who are finally getting their flowers, and wants to be in the mix. “I want to be, hashtag, main pop girl,” she says. “I really want now to see some Black girls be a part of that conversation, not only in pop, in every genre.” It’s part of the reason she started the Sellout Podcast, which has seen her celebrate Black talent and interview MNEK, Master Peace and Aliyah’s Interlude. “I want us to see that kind of widespread success.”
Now, with ‘Total Sellout’ complete, Stephens is looking to the future where she is more self-actualised, more confident, and more free as an artist. “We’re going to try more balls to the wall, and it’s going to be fun, fresh, free – whatever I want. I don’t have to hide behind anything, and I don’t have to follow anyone else’s rules or guidelines. It’s gonna be major.”
Jae Stephens’ ‘Total Sellout’ is out now via Raedio/Def Jam Recordings.
Listen to Jae Stephens’ exclusive playlist to accompany The Cover below on Spotify or on Apple Music here.
Words: Kayleigh Watson
Photography: Bradley Meinz
Makeup: Andrés Nuñez
Styling: Cedes L S
Label: Raedio/Def Jam Recordings