Jai’Len Josey’s Serial Romantic is a wakeup call on the hardships of modern romance. At a 1824 press conference with Broadway star and DEF JAMS artist, she explains how she learned to turn her pain into growth. She embraces her audacity to be selfish, outspoken, and imaginative in this new era of her life.
With Josey’s genre-bending skillset, she blends different eras of her life with grace and a satisfying rough edge. The album opens with classical instrumental reminiscent of a fantasy world. She sings in this upbeat, wide-eyed tone, smitten by the talent of a young musician. The title “Hearts and Strings” is a beautiful wordplay on the tantalizing pull of music. She hones in on music’s fascinating way of characterizing romance, sometimes creating a smoky mirror of true love. She reflects on the infatuation stage, where the red flags fade behind the facade of the rhythm.
But there is some truth to this fantasy. Josey explains that her work is about knowing that she is deserving of true love; she’s just looked for it in the wrong places.
“I feel like I have to shrink so that people know that I have a good heart and that I only mean the best, and that I want great friendships and that I want great love. And I think that that is unfortunate, and that is something that I’m, you know, still battling as a black woman,” Josey told Temple University Black Public Relations Society (TUBPRS).
Track 8, “Won’t Force You”, reinforces acoustics to show how she slowly reconciles with the reality of her struggling romance. She starts with empathy for her lover, who she wants to see happy even without her, but towards the end, she realizes that she may also need to spend time with herself. She speaks on the importance of showing ourselves the love and compassion we search for in others.
She told wfit broadcasting in an interview, “It is okay to start over, and you should believe in yourself when you do. We have intuition for a reason, and we should act on it in every single step. […] We should always trust our intuition. It holds the keys to our own kingdom.”
After doing the self-work, she’s ready to jump back into love. On her track “Out of my Body”, she falls hard, almost in a trance. This song takes on a slower, heavy-hitting beat with its larger influence on drums, and the background of a soft piano. Reintroducing herself to the beauty of romance, she lets the story play out and allows herself to sit with the intensity of her attraction. This phase in the dating scene, in my opinion, is often overlooked. I feel that in Black womanhood, we are taught to build strength to mask our emotions. Black women can’t always be superheroes, or perfectly polished. Reclaiming our womanhood means accepting that we can be soft, feminine, and sometimes reckless, an aspect of Josey’s album that sets her apart from the rest.
“I’m all for just experiencing life and loving it so much that I have no choice but to pour it out in words,” Josey told Her Campus.
Speaking of recklessness, she accepts her intense side on her track “Serial Romantic”, exploring her risqué side by proposing the idea of a threesome. She taps into this undiscovered part of herself. The imaginative, wild girl who wants to live life to the fullest. She goes full “carpe diem”. The beat takes on a fast-paced percussion-trap fusion, reflecting the new age of boldness within our culture, which, in my opinion, is the best way to stay true to yourself.
Her final track, “I Believe (Selfish)” is a harsh, but true love letter to romance. The story is told through heavy orchestral elements as she comes to a life-changing point in her journey. Where she steps back from romance to center herself. She says, “All the love I had to give, I should leave some for me.” Here she reclaims what was lost and sets out to pour it back into herself. Not so she can get ready for the next relationship, but to build her self-trust. The empathy she imparted to so many others is finally being given to her. Setting out on this new path, she speaks about how this sentiment gave her the push she needed to unpack what true love means to her, healing.
“[In old songs of mine] she was just a baby, and she needed to be loved in the way that I can love her now […] now I’m like trying to heal her through the rest of the music,” she told the Universal Music Live Podcast.
The Serial Romantic album explores the whirlwind that is love. Between the rose-colored infatuation, the pain of letting go, embracing deeper emotions, and starting the journey to true healing, Josey has shown herself to be an impressive narrator of the human experience of romance. She dared to shout the unspoken and take back the reins of her own life, even if she had to leave the comfortable versions of herself in the dust. As she opens the door to healing, I can’t wait to see what enlightening journey she takes us on next.