Coco Jones Is Worth Waiting For

For Coco Jones, this moment has been a long time coming. Despite releasing her first EP in 2010 and signing her first record deal in 2012, she’s just now celebrating the release of her album, Why Not More? But there was an upside to Jones’ long and winding road: The chance to craft her debut with the self-assurance of a legacy act.

“I’m proud of myself for putting together an album that I can really sing at the top of my lungs,” Jones tells Bustle on the eve of the record’s release, just before taking the stage to perform a handful of the new tracks for the very first time. The occasion? Motorola’s Make It Iconic event — a part of her partnership with the brand, timed to the launch of the new Motorola Razr. The party will serve as something of a warm-up for her upcoming tour, which will see Jones perform in 33 cities across North America before taking the show to Europe and the United Kingdom in the fall. “I’m excited to see it on tour, excited to see people’s reactions,” says the 27-year-old R&B artist.

Fans’ expectations are high on the heels of her most recent EP, 2022’s What I Didn’t Tell You. The deluxe edition racked up five nominations and a trophy for Best R&B Performance for “ICU” at the 2024 Grammy Awards, signaling Jones’ arrival in the big leagues.

“With my EP, there was a lot of learning experiences that I had to go through. I feel like I had to learn the ropes a little bit,” she says. While she still feels she has plenty of learning to do, “[my] confidence as a decision-maker has grown,” she says. “It’s gotten me to be a little bit more decisive.”

If there’s one thing she’s carried from project to project, however, it’s her musical influences. On Why Not More?, she channels Jazmine Sullivan through her ear for melody, commands each song with a conviction that would make Beyoncé proud, and even samples the Britney Spears classic “Toxic” on her third single, “Taste.” Of course, there’s a fine line between homage and pastiche, but it’s Jones’ infectious (and irresistibly meme-worthy) personality that allows her skirt imitation and be her own artist.

Her signature brand of humor is all over the album, though some jokes are more obvious than others. On “Here We Go (Uh Oh),” a Grammy-nominated power ballad about an ex who won’t let her move on. “How come when I see your name on my lock screen I already know what it means? / I was rollin’ in his bed, you was rent free in my head / I thought I was done with that lease.”

Elsewhere, she uses that same wit to mask her pain. The record opens with “Keep It Quiet,” a track Jones describes as a “very, very audacious song” about a partner’s suspected infidelity. “Think about it, fight about it, f*ck about it, why? / When I could just let your homeboy slide / You think you know me, got one more side,” she warns. On “Hit You Where It Hurts,” she threatens to cheat right back. “Maybe I double the trouble and humble you / I can get lower than low / Bring ’em in two in a row / What if I put on a show?”

“I hope [listeners] learn more about me and I hope they learn more about themselves,” Jones says of the album. “And I hope that I can expand the listener’s mind on all the ways that R&B can be.”

Given how long it’s taken to get here, you’d think Jones would be eager to slow down and take in the moment. Instead, she’s already making plans for the future: “Bigger shows, bigger songs, more everything,” she says. “Why not more? Hello, girl. It’s the title of the album.”