As nation music softly performs from a conveyable speaker close to the pool of a non-public residence in Malibu, Calif., Jessie Murph is posing on the steps of an Airstream in her footwear of alternative: Timberland boots with Western-inspired denim leg heaters. The fashion appears to riff on her favourite shoe, the snoot: half sneaker, half cowboy boot — and an ideal illustration of the artist herself.
“Being from Alabama, nation music was at all times round me,” remembers Murph, who grew up idolizing Adele, Amy Winehouse and Drake. “For a very long time I resented that a part of myself, so I attempted to shrink back from it. However then, simply by accepting shit, it began to seep into my music an increasing number of.”
That by line has since helped the 19-year-old artist carve a singular lane in a crowded discipline of younger expertise. But at a time when nation music is having fun with a mainstream excessive, Murph is considering simply how a lot she desires to lean in. “I’m making an attempt to determine that for myself as a result of I really feel like everyone’s doing it now,” she says with a fast sigh. “So it nearly makes me need to do one thing a bit of totally different as a result of I really feel like [country music] is starting to be saturated.”
Nonetheless, on her forthcoming debut album due out this 12 months, Murph — who seamlessly skips amongst nation, hip-hop and biting pop — plans to mix all of them throughout the tracklist. She has already proved her chops in every lane, showing on Diplo’s Diplo Presents Thomas Wesley: Chapter 2 — Swamp Savant alongside Polo G and, most just lately, scoring her highest-charting Billboard Scorching 100 entry with “Wild Ones” alongside nation hit-maker Jelly Roll. “That’s actually among the best individuals I’ve ever met,” Murph says of Jelly. “I really feel like I may go to him about something.”
Kathryn Boyd Brolin
Being raised in a “musical family” in Athens, Ala. — with a inhabitants of practically 30,000 — Murph began writing songs when she was 9 years outdated. By 11, she was posting covers on TikTok and YouTube, nailing all the things from David Guetta and Sia’s “Titanium” to Billie Eilish’s “Ocean Eyes” to Submit Malone’s extra singer-songwriter-based hits like “Feeling Whitney” and “Keep.”
After Murph began gaining traction on-line, her mom, a former musician, helped her daughter navigate the presents rolling in by e mail. (On the time, Murph was being homeschooled in the course of the pandemic.) She signed a administration cope with Disruptor’s Adam Alpert and Julie Leff in 2020, adopted by a major-label cope with Columbia in 2021. Her debut single, the brooding and edgy “Improve,” arrived with a music video during which Murph wearing a easy black outfit with slicked-back hair.
“That seems like a lifetime in the past,” she says at the moment, noting how a lot she has honed her fashion — and, in consequence, her sound — since then. “From the place I grew up, the fashion was actually preppy, so I used to decorate like that in highschool. However as I discovered myself by music, I discovered myself stylistically as effectively. I feel that additionally simply comes with rising up … Everyone finds their very own fashion as they become old, however I additionally lend a whole lot of it to the snoot, truthfully. The snoot has impressed a lot for me.”
The proof is in her hits. Her 2023 debut mixtape, Drowning, included standouts “At all times Been You” and “Pray,” each showcasing Murph’s storytelling whereas spotlighting her Southern drawl and emotive rasp. The remainder of her 12 months was outlined by her collaborations, including one with Maren Morris titled “Texas” to her lineup.
However as she believes, one of the best is but to come back. She says her forthcoming debut album is probably the most proud she has ever felt of her music. “It’s simply so actually me,” she says. “There’s some stuff on there that’s positively surprising … I’m rapping, I’m belting, and a few of it’s barely nation. Every part I’m saying on this album, I fucking imply. It’s coming straight from the guts.”
Her newest single, the eviscerating “Son of a Bitch,” is proof sufficient. Whereas a little bit of Winehouse could be heard in Murph’s soulful vocals — although she sings with extra grit — the tune is distinctly hers. And whereas rooted within the acquainted idea of revenge, very like Carrie Underwood’s “Earlier than He Cheats,” Murph’s take is extra ominous, as she sings, “This aspect of me, she ain’t Jessie.”
For an artist like Murph, that sort of authenticity — personally and sonically — is essential. And whereas she admits she has needed to “overly clarify” her imaginative and prescient in some songwriting classes, she believes her wide-ranging pursuits are “much less of one thing I’m meticulously doing and extra due to who I’m.”
She just lately enlisted Shaboozey to open for her on tour and names Lil Child as her dream collaborator. She’s predicting that “random” team-ups will turn into more and more well-liked this 12 months, expressing her pleasure at a possible Lana Del Rey-Quavo launch that has been teased on-line.
And whereas she has plans of headlining arenas at some point (and ultimately promoting snoots), for now, Murph is having fun with fleeting moments of normalcy earlier than her profession kicks into overdrive. Having simply carried out at Hangout Music Competition, a hometown gig in Alabama’s Gulf Shores — she says the distinction in crowd measurement from final 12 months to now “makes me need to cry” — Murph is grounding herself with some household time. She rode bikes together with her brother, laid out by the pool together with her mother and later deliberate to look at the Winehouse biopic Again to Black.
For Murph, it’s greater than a film about one in every of her icons. It’s a reminder of what she herself has lengthy been working towards. “I’ve at all times needed to do that,” she says. “It’s simply surreal.”
This story seems within the June 1, 2024 concern of Billboard.
Kathryn Boyd Brolin
