South London-born artist JGrrey has detailed her debut album, you, me and jen, and shared new single bedbug, featuring Brooklyn rapper Erick the Architect. The track follows previous singles take my hand and pedigrree, with trip-hop production from Maths Time Joy. She has described the song as a shift away from her usual instinct to humble herself, using the track's attitude to push back against that habit.
The album sees JGrrey embracing contradiction, working from the idea that growth comes from accepting complexity rather than resisting it. She grew up in foster care before being adopted, and writes as a queer mixed Irish-Jamaican woman who never knew her birth father and spent years moving between places; the songs centre on displacement, identity and belonging drawn from that history.
Since starting out in the late 2010s through intimate live sessions, JGrrey has collaborated with Finn Askew, Manga Saint Hilare and Baxter Dury, supported Billie Eilish on tour, been sampled by Madlib, and performed at Cross The Tracks, We Out Here and BBC Radio 1's Big Weekend.
you, me and jen spans neo-soul, jazz, hip-hop, electronic music and alternative R&B, released via Ditto Label Services. It lands in the release calendar as one of the month's debut albums, and her name now has a page of its own on the hip-hop hub.
JGrrey framed the shift in her own words: "I find in music... I'm always trying to humble myself, check myself and not get too boastful," she said. "When I heard the beat for this it just made me want to chat shit."
The facts
- The debut album is titled you, me and jen
- The single bedbug features Brooklyn rapper Erick the Architect
- Trip-hop production on bedbug comes from Maths Time Joy
- JGrrey grew up in foster care before being adopted
- She was born in South London to an Irish-Jamaican family
- She has supported Billie Eilish on tour and been sampled by Madlib
- The album spans neo-soul, jazz, hip-hop, electronic and alternative R&B
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