Coco Jones Does It Her Way
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Coco Jones is ready to fly. After her platinum song “ICU” earned the Tennessee native her first Grammy win for Best R&B Performance, she says she feels “like I’ve climbed a mountain. I just have to get to the highest point I can so that I can leap with everything I’ve got and just take off.” This year, the 26-year-old R&B artist and former Disney kid, who currently stars in Peacock’s Bel-Air, plans to do just that. This April, she dropped “Here We Go (Uh-Oh),” the lead single off her much-anticipated debut album, out this summer.
The sound will be familiar to fans who fell in love with the old-school R&B storytelling of her last EP, 2022’s What I Didn’t Tell You, but she’ll play around with new genres, too: “I don’t think I’ll ever fully leave my R&B comfort [zone],” she says, “but there are so many more elements to me that I want to start to sprinkle in.” Still, Jones will always hold on to the qualities that have gotten her this far. “The external awards reflect my inner tenacity,” she says. “I can think back to those times when I had no glimpse of this and I still kept going.”
What has been your most unbelievable moment in music?
Being nominated for five Grammys was not a sentence I ever thought I was going to hear at this stage in my career. That’s been the most unbelievable. And winning a Grammy feels kind of surreal as well. But the way my mind reacted to the five nominations, I was like, “No way.”
Do you see yourself and your career differently now?
It instilled a lot of confidence in me. When I was first putting out a project, I wasn’t sure what people were going to think. To have all this support come from me being unsure, imagine how much more I can do with certainty of myself and certainty of my music and my creative impulses.
What’s your overall career goal?
I want the option to be able to be involved in whatever I’m into. If I don’t want to put out an album for five years and I want to open up an art gallery for Black women, that would be what I do. And it would be respected and it would be valued and taken seriously because of my name and because of how hard I work. I could score a movie, start a product line, or develop an artist. I want to have options to do whatever I desire.
Has your definition of success changed as you’ve gotten older and more famous?
My definition of success used to just be: Beyoncé. But I can’t focus so much on what this woman that I am a huge fan of did. I can take the core principles, the hard work of it all, the authenticity of it all, the re-creating yourself of it all. But it has to be the Coco way. I used to do that with so many people: “I want to do what she did,” and just leave it there. But I’m me, so I can’t be what someone else is. I have to find a new way.
What would you love to explore musically?
On my debut album, I accomplished some of the sonic changes and experimentation that I wanted to try. I have so many different types of music that I’m into. Let’s not forget that I was fully a Disney girl, so I was engulfed in those pop bops. And I’m from the South, so I sang folk-country with grown artists and musicians, and had to hold my own. I have other chapters of my life that I want to pay homage to. Of course, I was raised in the church. Gospel music taught me so much about soul and spiritual connection through music.
Have any female R&B artists served as mentors to you or given you advice?
I love Ella Mai. She’s my homegirl. She’s had the type of success that I’m working toward, so she gives me a lot of advice. It’s also just the peer-to-peer support. Chloe x Halle and I are constantly uplifting each other whenever we see each other, because we grew up together in the Disney world. That’s the really beautiful part, the “Girl, we see what you’re doing. Keep going.”
You’ve mentioned that you don’t like being famous.
I don’t feel like anyone would like it if they got a taste of it. It’s very strange. I feel like an animal in a zoo sometimes. But I know that it’s not something to complain about. I think about my younger self and how I would feel when I saw people on TV in real life. I didn’t know how to act, and it’s just not normal. I’m not normal. And the human reaction to seeing me in my job, because it’s an un-normal job, is going to be an un-normal reaction. So I just have to look at it like a human response to seeing somebody that you only see on your phone. It’s strange. So I don’t take it any way but the logical way. I feel like there’s a lot of good that comes with people wanting to know more about you. You can tell them your journey, you can inspire, you can uplift. So there’s good and bad with that, too. But of course, if it was my preference, I would [just] release my songs under an alias and collect my funds.
Do you have a dream collaboration?
Mine would be Beyoncé, but I have so many other artists that I love as well: Jazmine Sullivan, Brandy, Rihanna, Alex Isley. I would do a song with Ella [Mai]. And I love Tate McRae. I think she’s fire.
Is there a question that you’ve never been asked that you’ve always wanted to share?
No one has ever asked me if the work that it takes once you do get to these things was anything that I could have understood before I got here. People see that I’m signed, I have a show, and I put things out. They don’t think, “I wonder if she knew what she was really signing up for.” The answer is no. There are so many other little things that you have to do. You have to be the final say in so many things. I didn’t know there would be so many questions that need answers, [many of which are] time-sensitive. You’re also balancing so many different sides of you: “Do you want to do this interview and this commercial? This product wants you to be aligned. Do you like this product? Can you go on tour? This artist wants you to sing on this song.” You have to constantly make sure that you can really stand on business with what you’re saying yes to. And if you don’t want to do that thing, then it’s like, “How much of this is a necessary thing for where I’m trying to get? Or is this really a choice?” On your schedule, there are things you really want to do, things you definitely don’t want to do, and things you just have to do to keep it going and not lose yourself in the midst of all those things.
I want people to think about that, too. On social media, everybody’s like, “Drop this [music].” You’re trying to still be an artist and you’re trying to live your life so you can write songs that you relate to. It’s not all glitz and glamour. The payoff is amazing, but I feel like sometimes I read comments talking about an artist. I’m like, “Girl, you have no idea what the smoke is like over here.” You have to make sure that you do what’s necessary, but also the things that are you. They don’t mesh all the time.
Where do you display your Grammy?
Right now it’s nowhere, because they have to engrave it and ship it out. It’s going to my mom’s house. When I get married and settle down into my life, that’s when I’ll be like, “Mom, let me get some of them awards back.”
Hair by E Williams for Kérastase; makeup by Alexandra French for Maybelline; manicure by Karen Jimenez for Chanel Le Vernis; set design by Carlos Lopez; produced by The Production Partners.
A version of this story appears in the May 2024 issue of ELLE.
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