Jae Stephens Talks Having the ‘Audacity’ to Blow Up Your Pop Star Expectations: ‘I Take Up as Much Space as I Feel I Deserve’
Categoria: Musica
The ascendant pop star talks about how her signature, man-skewering songs triggered a breakup — and inspired her debut album.
Por Billboard | 28/09/2026
Though you may not know it from the charts, Black pop stars are having a moment. From Tinashe’s form-redefining Popstar to expansive, forward-thinking releases by Tinashe ( Popstar ), RAYE ( This Music May Contain Hope ), Tyla ( A*Pop ), Ayra Starr ( Starrgirl ), girlsweetvoiced ( Lovesweet ), FLO ( Therapy at the Club ) and Chxrry ( U, Me & My Ego ), 2026 is the year of Black women rewriting the rules of pop music and pop stardom on their terms — no matter how long it takes the mainstream to catch up. Related Ayra Starr Explains How Moving to New York City — And Making Her Acting Debut — Inspired Her New ‘Starrgirl’ LP: ‘I Exist in Multitudes’ Tinashe’s ‘POPSTAR’: All 16 Tracks Ranked Here Are All the 2026 MTV VMAs Winners: Full List Now, it’s Jae Stephens’ turn. The Dallas-born, Pasadena-raised pop singer-songwriter dropped her long-awaited debut studio album, Audacity, via Def Jam and Issa Rae’s Raedio imprint last week (Sept. 25). A smart, snarky lyricist who landed early placements with Jennifer Lopez (2024’s “Rebound”), Ne-Yo (2022’s “What If”) and Jihyo of TWICE (2023’s “Closer”), Stephens, 29, uses Audacity to present the most fully realized iteration of her pop persona yet. Across the frothy — and sometimes sardonic —11-track set, Stephens rules a Coyote Ugly -inspired city dominated by women who view men as nothing more than sources of money and attention. Striking the right balance of playfulness and subconscious honesty within a framework of cheekily misandrist humor is no easy task — but, for Stephens, it’s second nature. “I like bringing home the bacon/ But I still spend yours, that’s reparations,” she quips on “Expensive & Difficult.” Featuring contributions from forward-thinking pop architects Dallas Caton, MNEK and PinkPantheress, Audacity breezes through breathless rhythmic pop (“Attaboy!”), hazy, reflective midtempos (“I Miss the City”) and hip-hop-meets-hyperpop moments (“B4U”), with Stephens maintaining an undercurrent of disarming honesty that she only sources through her commitment to pop’s trademark formulas. “As a writer, I’m not hella autobiographical, so I never sit down with diary pages or anything,” she tells Billboard a month before the album’s release. “If it slaps, I’ll write it! But oftentimes I’ll write a song, go away from it, and come back a month later like, ‘Oh, that was true! That was real!’ That was the case with a lot of Audacity .” Audacity follows last year’s Total Sellout , a compilation of 2024’s Sellout and 2025’s Sellout II EPs. Where those projects felt like Stephens was still shaking off the sheen of a songwriter-first approach, Audacity revels in an energy that feels much closer to the lovably chaotic and endlessly hilarious persona fans have been enamored with since Stephens was running her beyoncebeytwice Tumblr blog over a decade ago . With an acclaimed Lollapalooza debut under her belt and a support stint on Khalid’s European tour on the horizon, Jae St