Last year, Courtney Jones went through a turbulent period of self-doubt. Formally known as Coco Jones, the end of a relationship caused the R&B and acting prodigy a crippling loss of confidence.

After God’s consultation, Jones seized hold of her circumstances, choosing to exhale in the studio. “It was a perfect opportunity to really speak on something that was so true to me at that exact moment.” The result of her ruminations mark the inner workings behind the singer’s highly anticipated debut album Why Not More? 

“By Myself,” the penultimate track to the album, is arguably the most vulnerable we’ve heard the singer across her career. Wistfully honest, Jones’ brooding, pensive vocals anchor the riveting final guitar arrangement. “On my own, need to know I can be without you,” she croons to herself, eager to gain solace and comfort in her own reflection. It’s earnest inasmuch as it is authentic—a scenario we’ve all faced personally or know of by proxy. “I ended up cutting them off,” Jones reveals. “It took a lot out of me. And it was very hard.” Her decision to document her experiences in “By Myself” and release them to the world reveals a growing confidence in her own instincts for Coco Jones. 

At 27, Jones is affirmed and decisive in articulating herself transparently, and navigating both her career and personal life by making sure she’s being heard. “You don’t wanna upset people. You don’t wanna lose this opportunity as if it’s something that you didn’t earn,” she says of her younger self, particularly her early 20s. “But in the latter half, I feel like I have earned the right to have opinions, strong opinions, contradictory opinions, and the proof is in the pudding.” Just a week before our meeting, Jones was gifted a gold plaque by her label head—Def Jam’s Tunji Balogun—for album single, “Here We Go (Uh Oh)”; last year, she gained her first Grammy, granting “ICU” the moniker Best R&B Performance. “Don’t forget your voice, you know?” she explains. “Don’t forget that voice…I’m the same girl who made ‘ICU,’ I’m just leaning into other instincts now.” 

Early strokes of Coco Jones’ perceived confidence lie in her larger-than-life, neighbourly personality—there’s a quirk that leaps into every room that she steps into, fortifying itself to the hearts and minds of anyone that the artist strikes conversation with. It’s the same personality that’s sprinkled across her September 12th, 2020 entry on YouTube live: “What Really Happened,” exposing the trials, tribulations, and empty promises of her time as a coveted Disney starlet post-Let It Shine. She speaks of the bias that exists across Hollywood’s entertainment sphere, the intersectionalities that impact casting, consideration, and overall trajectory across the arts. Five years later, the video is still relevant. One doesn’t have to scroll too far to find viral references to the 32-minute airing. (Among them: “Yes, I did that. And you would do it too for a check!”) “The way you unintentionally gave TikTok like 10 different sounds from this,” a YouTube comment reflects. “You’re telling me this was live and she gave us such iconic quotes,” says another. Jones’ is a similar humor to peers Keke Palmer and Kelvin Harrison Jr.—she has an ability to turn even unfortunate circumstances into a shield of comedic confidence. 

In Jones’ case, she’s faking it till she makes it, a mantra she refuses to let go of. “There were a lot of auditions where I walked in that room knowing I was not gonna get that job. And there were a lot of executives that I sang for who I know did not give two F’s about me,” she reveals, a nonchalance wedded to her narrative. She marks her first surrender to embodying confidence here, when she pressed upload on “What Really Happened” at 22. “I feel like it was definitely an inner mental battle because I didn’t know what the outcome was gonna be. I didn’t know if I was gonna get blackballed for saying anything.” Ultimately, it’s her commitment to presenting the reality to both herself and her fans that led her to produce the video and keep it up there. “I had to trust that my good intentions would protect me from any bad perception.”

The documentation of her growth and career in real time is indicative of her generation, but tugs at yesteryear across entertainment (one might recall the coveted Y2K Behind the Music series taking you into the booth, unpacking the process)—Jones simply leans into tendencies that are behavioural and vocation-led. Her recent four-part Road To Taste BTS series is equally indicative of this. The release peers behind the production of her single “Taste;” a number that’s arguably risqué with its clutch to Britney Spears’ “Toxic” atop the hook, and Jones’s meticulous choreography, conceived by renowned dancer and choreographer Aliya Janell Brinson. “I really let fans into the rehearsals and the BTS to see how hard I work on these things, how seriously I take them, just to keep them more a part of the journey as much as I can,” she rationalizes. 

Like her peers Tyla, Normani, and Doechii, Coco Jones is sentient of the perceptions of herself online as she blossoms as an artist. “Taste” and its unorthodox, higher pitched chorus are a case in point: It’s glimmer towards pop—a genre Coco loved also as a kid—saw an array of reactions. “It’s pushing the boundaries a little,” she laughs on reflection. Received mostly positively, Coco did see the memes surrounding that hook, which placed a clip of commentator and artist Zach Campbell across the vocals. 

“Now I knew that was gonna have some adverse reactions,” Coco shares sarcastically. “On the internet it’s here today, gone tomorrow. The funny people kind of came over to the other side as well.” Finding humor in the memes, she honors the fandom she’s built, and the honesty they share together. It’s after she performed a stripped back version of “Taste” on The Terrell Show, that she was met with an unequivocal embrace. “Everybody was living for it. So I was like, all right.” Listening to her fans, Coco released The Terrell Show version exclusively on an extended edition of Why Not More? “I bet you they thought we weren’t going to drop the live version of TASTE,” she announced on Instagram.

Jones is quick to embrace her inner child, Courtney, and her roots in Tennessee. A heartland of country music, she grew up surrounded by the genre, deeply immersed in the lyrical prowess that lay woven to it. “I feel like there’s such great penmanship in country music,” Jones tenderly begins. “The storylines are always so beautiful.” Jones’ demeanour is impassioned as she articulates her love of Rascal Flatts and their 2004 single “Bless The Broken Road.” Majestic in her take on the genre, “Hit You Where It Hurts” is magical as it courts the ear, the richness of Jones’ deeply sharp runs canvassing a universe of hurt, double standards, and tit-for-tat. 

Jones sees more similarities than differences between R&B and country, loving both of them equally. According to her, both are designed to make people feel deeply. “They use music as a tool to connect human experiences.” As it pertains to R&B, Jones’ vocal aptitude lies from studying the likes of Brandy, whose “When You Touch Me” serves as a seminal record for her. “The personality of it, the emotions of it, the vocal stacks, the backgrounds, the intention, the story of it,” Jones explains of her attachment to the record.

As a child, Coco Jones became accustomed to hearing her mother Javonda spout the unfiltered truth. “She will bluntly tell me like, ‘that wasn’t giving’ and I appreciate that type of tough truth,” she shrugs. Over the last few years, as Jones garnered her second coming, she’s built a legion of industry support by acknowledging that same methodology. It’s helped to establish a vigorous relationship with juggernaut R&B producer, London on da Track. The mastermind behind Why Not More?’s title-track, he told her to push herself sonically, and try reggae. 

One to utilize the familiar bluntness of her mother, London and Jones are brutally honest with one another, united in the shared mission of being better. “He’s very emotional, I’m very specific. He’ll tell me to sing that run again, or sing in this way or that way. I’ll give him something very specific and expect him to make a whole universe from it.” Laughing at various obscure references in her notes that she’s made him build songs from, she values the camaraderie they’ve built since What I Didn’t Tell You. Featuring YG Marley, “Why Not More?” doesn’t have to do much to earn the attention of the ear; oozing in tranquillity, its supple arrival is reminiscent of the British lovers rock offshoot of reggae. Perhaps Jones’ biggest leap of faith across her inaugural album, the track serves her voice with the most ease, its balm meeting her effortless might as a vocalist. “Does it make you feel something? Mm-hmm. That was kind of the standard. That was the only rule. It all just felt real,” she says when she played it back. There was no question after that litmus test of the song’s inclusion. 

Why Not More? serves as more than a body of work for Coco Jones, or a submission to a label—hence her emotional visual diary entry counting down to the project’s release. The ties between Coco and Courtney (the famous and private citizen) were felt in real time. That’s because, peeling the layers back, it operates at the intersection of significant life factors for Coco Jones: a true embrace of womanhood, lifting her artistic veil and it serving as a marker of the multi-hyphenate’s second coming in entertainment. Why Not More? is bigger than an album—it’s Coco Jones laid bare for the world to inspect; for Courtney to inspect. “I think knowing myself has helped me to communicate who I am in a much better way,” she concludes, a self-assurance illuminating itself in our exchange. “I still gotta bet on myself and that might not always lead to the perfect formula, but at least I won’t live with the regret.”

Photographed by Dennis Leupold

Styled by Michy Millions

Written by Nicolas-Tyrell Scott

Hair: Ray Christopher at The Wall Group 

Makeup: Kimora Mulan at Opus Beauty

Flaunt Film: Yong W Kim

1st: Tommy Blanco

Digital: Hailey Magoon

On-Set Production: Merry Nestor

Styling Assistant: Alexys Yanez