The trajectory of JoJo’s career is certainly an anomaly when you consider the landscape of music she was part of when first introduced to us in 2004. Though a mainstream hit has eluded her for well over a decade, she continues to thrive. Her headline show at London’s Roundhouse in May was proof that she’s not a relic relying on nostalgia to draw a crowd.

The significance of JoJo’s career far transcends the enduring appeal of her signature smash hits such as “Leave (Get Out)”, “Baby It’s You” and “Too Little Too Late”. Her extensive back catalogue is armed with an arsenal of cult hits such as “Anything”, “Disaster” and “Demonstrate” that supersede the arbitrary nature of chart positions and sales. Elsewhere, her rendition of “Marvin’s Room” has become just as synonymous with her as it has its original auteur, Drake.

JoJo’s conscientious spirit has ensured that an industry which continues to routinely derail careers and silence voices, did not catch her in its venomous web. In the process, creating a template for other artists to follow. Despite dominant media’s best efforts to make it appear as if the renaissance of re-recording old material to gain new masters was all spearheaded by Taylor Swift, this is false. It was actually JoJo who lit the spark in this chain reaction.

History will greatly be kind to JoJo’s legacy when it’s all said and done. As the heir to Teena Marie’s throne of ivory soul, JoJo has had a significant hand in raising many vocalists who’ve come up behind her like Ariana Grande, Demi Lovato, Kehlani, Ella Mai, Camilla Cabello, and Joyce Wrice.

Yet, one can only imagine how all the adversity has impacted her personally. These profoundly distressing wounds are at the nexus of her latest project, “trying not to think about it”. A deeply transparent EP that explores in all its shades and colours, the sliding spectrum of mental health.”

JoJo isn’t a stranger to singing her blues. Her innermost thoughts have previously been captured on cuts like “Just A Dream”, “We Get By”, “Thinking Out Loud”, “Lonely Hearts” and most candidly on “Joanna”. But “trying not to think about it” marks a new chapter for the singer, as the entire project focuses on her constantly evolving relationship with anxiety and depression.

Throughout the project’s 12 tracks, JoJo ruminates on exposing subject matter that touches on comfort eating, alcoholism, projection, self-sabotage and self-depreciation. Confessional material that may not have manifested without the isolating nature of COVID-19’s lockdown measures. “The pandemic made all of us come face to face not only with ourselves but with our coping mechanisms,” she imparts. “We couldn’t run to them as easily during that time. We all got a healthy unexpected dose of introspection”.

The EP’s first single, “Worst (I Assume)”, sharply scrutinises how trauma and baggage from past relationships can rise to the surface and disrupt new romantic connections. The peppy “Spiral SZN” is a satirical but frank take on the dangerous nature of spiralling, overthinking and negative thoughts. Speaking on how these habits can feel oddly comforting and gratifying over time, she admits, “Once we’re in a pattern, it’s hard to just switch that up on a whim. If you let your thoughts run wild and snowball into an avalanche of darkness, it’s not easy to get yourself out from that. You really have to work at breaking that cycle of thinking”.

Amidst the air of gloom and weightiness pervading most of the songs is “Anxiety (Burlinda’s Theme)”, which sees JoJo cleverly upend the trope of the break-up song. Humorously personifying her anxiety as an entity independent of herself, who in her words is “this bitch who tries to hijack my reality and my thoughts”. Meanwhile the EP’s closing track, “Lift”, pins down acceptance that anti-depressants will be conducive to her mental rejuvenation. A decision that she admits once triggered internal shame. “I felt I should just be able to manage my mental health with exercise, diet, meditation, prayer and fasting. They’re helpful tools of course, but I realised that I needed extra help”.

During the EP’s initial promotional run last October, JoJo termed the release as a time capsule of where she mentally and emotionally was during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. If one reads between the lines, it’s apparent that the project functions as a more thorough excavation of insecurities and issues that have long plagued JoJo’s psyche. “As I’m getting older, I’m realising how everything is interconnected. There are things that really took a toll on me as a teenager. I’ve carried a lot of that weight”. This is most illuminated on the EP’s seventh track “Fresh New Sheets”. A track that on the surface chronicles JoJo fighting against the urge to use sex to escape her problems. Yet, it’s on this song where she explicitly addresses the long-term effects of her infamous legal battle with Blackground Records. The label that cruelly rendered her unable to commercially release music for 10 years when she was at the peak of her cultural zenith.

With a hazy delivery, she sings “Ain’t I supposed to be further and bigger than this? When I walk in a room, don’t they know what it is?” When I ask her to confirm if that line was her expressing dissatisfaction about the state of her career, she says, “It was definitely coming from that. I was just allowing my ego to take over my pen. When I was going through it with my old label, I felt so out of control that I would use sex as a coping mechanism. That was when I felt like I could be in control”.

After many years of litigation, JoJo was finally released from her contract with Blackground Records, in 2014. Almost immediately, she was tasked with re-situating herself into an industry that was now far different from the one she was familiar with in her glory years of the mid-2000s – an era where going viral, streaming and social media has increasingly become king with trends constantly in flux. All of which have made JoJo question her place in the music sphere today. “I’ve been questioning what’s next in my career because the current standing of things is virality and controversy. Sometimes I feel like, damn, I’m not controversial enough. How do I take control of my narrative in a way that makes me proud?”

Furthermore, the artistic and vocal maturity JoJo has embarked on as she’s grown into womanhood has been unfairly overlooked. Critics are still yet to recognise how integral the mixtapes “Can’t Take That Away From Me”, “Agape”, “LoveJo” and “LoveJo2” have been to her development as an artist. Adventurous and experimental bodies of work, sonically spanning jazz, Hip-Hop, folk, electronica, gospel and R&B. These unplanned diversions in her musical story have paved the way for everything she’s made since her career re-stabilised; material that has boasted collaborations with stalwarts like Pharrell, Tank, Tinashe, Jacob Collier, MNEK, PJ Morton and Thundercat.

Despite the drama with Blackground Records long behind her, it seems as if the major label system as a whole is something that is possibly in contention with how she wants to navigate her career. “I ask myself, what does the road forward look like? Does it still involve a major label? Is it a more independent route? There’s a lack of transparency between labels and artists. The trust doesn’t really feel as it should, it’s still unbalanced”.

Elaborating further on creative differences that have festered as a result, “There’s actually an unreleased house project that was made around the time of my ‘Mad Love’ album. I really wanted to come back with that and it was unfortunately shot down. I was then presented with ‘When Love Hurts’ which I felt missed the mark but I was being told that was the only single the label would support. The whole thing just made me feel shitty about myself”.

Such draining experiences have subsequently fed into how she approaches the development of Clover Music, the label imprint she founded in 2017. “I believe in what Clover Music can be and will be but it is my empathy and compassion that has kept me from signing anyone. I want to make sure that I have the capital and the infrastructure to support an artist in a way that they really deserve to be supported”. JoJo wants to cultivate paradigms and structures more humane than the ones she was bred in.

“trying not to think about it” marks the end of a tumultuous but equally re-invigorating act in the narrative arc of JoJo’s life and career. Its creation and release were crucial to establishing a much-needed re-awakening. Now, as she maps out the next phase of her career, there is a resolute sense of purpose and fearlessness. “I’m not interested in freaking myself out by trying to stay relevant. That’s not how I’m going to make my best music. I want my next album to be my best. Something that if I were to die, that album could be what represents me forever”.