There’s a particular calm that comes from someone finally admitting they don’t have the answers. Not in a self-help, bullet-point kind of way, but in the exhausted, honest way that comes after you’ve tried every version of pretending you’re fine. That’s where JoJo was when Trying Not to Think About It started taking shape — not as a grand statement, but as a necessity.
“It feels so good to put out new music,” she said, already aware of the irony. “As artists, I think we can tend to obsess over things and nitpick it, and that actually lends itself to what this whole project is about — toxic thoughts, negative patterns, and how our anxious thoughts can block our blessings.”
The songs didn’t arrive as a clean slate. They arrived as a reckoning. JoJo went back through her own catalog during quarantine and heard a pattern she couldn’t ignore. “I realized that I’ve been writing about my own experiences with depression and anxiety through the years,” she said. “And I was going through a really, really difficult time — feeling unable to see a future where I believed I could be happy.”
That realization came with stakes. “I realized that if I didn’t channel this feeling into music, I wasn’t sure what was going to happen next,” she admitted. “So I came to music like I have since I was a little girl.”
Rather than force an album-sized solution, she framed Trying Not to Think About It as something smaller and more precise. “I’m considering this an EP — a capsule, a time capsule of where I was in this particular depression,” she said. “I was really trying to metaphorically smack myself and wake up out of it.”
That phrase — “trying not to think about it” — does a lot of work. It’s advice no one actually follows successfully. “Don’t think about your doom spiraling, don’t think about the worst-case scenario,” she said. “That’s easier said than done, so I kind of wrote my way through that.”
Crucially, JoJo wasn’t interested in offering solutions. “I don’t have any answers,” she said plainly. “I’m barely an expert in myself.” What she does have is curiosity. “This is more of an exploration — being as bare and transparent as possible.”
That transparency extended beyond the lyrics. “The more I opened up, especially with the people I was collaborating with, the more I realized that most of us are struggling with something,” she said. “Even the people you think have it all figured out.”
The songs themselves refuse to sit quietly in their feelings. There’s bounce here. Groove. Hooks that don’t ask permission before lodging themselves in your head. JoJo was intentional about that tension. “I don’t want to paint this like it’s such a sad project,” she said. “There’s this hard-ass beat and these melodies that get stuck in your head. It’s not all crying in a bathtub.”
Instead, it mirrors real life. “Even in a dark time, you might have a moment of fun, a moment of romance, sensuality, energy,” she said. “But you also might really be in your head about all of it.”
If the emotional blueprint feels familiar, that’s because JoJo knew exactly where she was looking for permission. “The album that gave me the confidence to do a whole project around this experience was Joni Mitchell's Blue,” she said. “She wrote about one of her depressions. There’s a lot of reconciling with her own decisions, her own patterns. She never tried to paint herself as perfect.”
That imperfection mattered. “Sometimes I felt like I’ve made too many mistakes, I’ve been selfish,” JoJo said. “Joni wrote about that in a way that always inspired me to be unafraid.” She also pointed to Amy Winehouse as another lodestar — someone who didn’t sand down the mess.
Sonically, Trying Not to Think About It pulls from a different kind of lineage: “Classic R&B meeting pop of the ’90s and 2000s,” she said, citing Usher’s 8701, Confessions, Justin Timberlake’s FutureSex/LoveSounds, and Timbaland’s work with Aaliyah. She’s equally energized by what’s happening now. “What H.E.R. is doing, Snoh Aalegra, Victoria Monét, Silk Sonic — it’s a great time to be making R&B music.”
That forward motion matters because JoJo doesn’t want to stay here forever. “I knew I had to write this EP about what I was going through,” she said. “Otherwise, I might not be able to come out of it.” Depression, for her, often looks like withdrawal. “Wanting to sleep all day, isolate, count myself out,” she said. “I had to actively try to break that.”
The upcoming intimate tour dates are part of that break. “The greatest pleasure I have as an artist is human connection,” she said. “I want people to walk into the venue and feel seen and taken care of.”
Eventually, she hopes the lens shifts outward. “I’m sick of myself,” she laughed. “My hope is that whatever comes next is outside of me.”
For now, Trying Not to Think About It stands exactly where it needs to: not as a breakthrough moment, not as a cure, but as proof that staying with the feeling long enough can still turn into something beautiful — even if you’re not done figuring it out.
Watch the interview above and then check out the videos below.
