Pursuing sex and love as a highly accomplished and beautiful woman—a baddie—is hard work. People will call you conceited simply for having high standards, partners might act intimidated or jealous of your success, and what about the guys you’ll have to beat off with a stick when they get too attached? Such are the problems Jae Stephens confronts on her stellar major label debut, AUDACITY.
Born in Dallas and raised in Los Angeles, Stephens is a Beyoncé Tumblr stan turned self-taught pop artist. She found early success as a songwriter, helping to pen tracks for the likes of Normani, Ashanti, and Jennifer Lopez, but she’s been releasing music under her own name since 2017. On 2024’s SELLOUT EP, she hit her stride with flirty, neotraditional tracks that nodded to the rhinestone shine of 2000s-era radio R&B and established her persona as an ultra-confident, playfully misandrist diva. AUDACITY speaks boldly about relationships in the voice of a woman who isn’t embarrassed to say that she’s the prize.
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Stephens is a pop student in a way that a former stan would be, and AUDACITY reads from an encyclopedia of acclaimed Black pop artists and producers: the percussive snap of opener “Crush” recalls Janet Jackson’s new-jack-swingy “Nasty.” “Gymnastics” and “Expensive & Difficult” feel closer to Timbaland’s shuddering pop production of the 2000s and the distorted dancefloor blur of Danja’s work on Blackout. Ashanti’s “Foolish” and Willow’s “Whip My Hair” both get name-checked on “B4U.” “I Miss the City” features a blinging harp melody akin to Brandy’s “All in Me,” produced by Darkchild.
She may have grown her bawdy style and pop star image through fandom, but Stephens brings her own brazen personality and winking, trollish humor. Songwriting, she recently told Rolling Stone, is “the one place I’m allowed to be the villain. I’m allowed to say what I want, and the listener can decide if I’m serious or not.” On “Expensive and Difficult,” she sings that she likes “bringing home the bacon/But I’ll still spend yours, that’s reparations.” She’s practically training sexual partners like show dogs on songs like “Attaboy!” and “Sugar Trap,” but she’s not always as tough as she talks. In the album’s softer moments, Stephens sings about conflict and vulnerability without breaking character. On “I Miss the City,” she sheds a partner who tried to control her and returns to her old life, where she and her friends can club to their heart’s content. She chides her ex for holding her back, saying they’re “moving way too Kansas.”
The songs on AUDACITY, primarily written and produced by Stephens, Dallas Caton, and Lita Caputo, carefully follow classic pop structure: verse, pre-chorus, chorus, rinse, repeat, bridge, and occasionally a final chorus. For another artist, that could feel formulaic, but paired with the funny, horny songwriting and Stephens’ showoff vocal delivery, that’s not the case here. Like her favorite pop icons, her rich voice is essential to her music, and her belts and coos slice through layered production with ease. AUDACITY’s concision and momentum speak to Stephens’ skill for song construction, no doubt trained through her time writing for big-name artists; each bell twinkle, synth laser zap, and handclap feel highly considered, as if placed with tweezer tongs. While the record takes few true risks, it’s a more-than-effective showcase for her cheeky songwriting, vocal process, and facility with a pop hook. All that confidence isn’t misplaced.
Daniel D`Amico for SANREMO.FM
