JoJo Was At Her Lowest Point. Now She's Just Trying Not To Think About It

By Jack Irvin


In the months leading up to the April 2020 release of JoJo’s album Good to Know, the singer-songwriter was at her most liberated. Almost entirely co-written and co-produced by the artist herself, the ultra-introspective collection was her first original project to come out on Clover Music, her own label imprint launched in partnership with Warner Records. The release was a far cry from the near-decade she was kept from releasing music due to a contract dispute with Blackground Records that was resolved in court in 2014, along with because the creative contradictions she endured with her subsequent label, Atlantic Records, while in the making of 2016’s Mad Love. On top of that, “Say So,” her group effort with PJ Morton, won a Grammy in January 2020 for Best R&B Song, which further proved JoJo’s perseverance over her 20-plus years in the entertainment industry was worth it. “[It] gave me a sense of validation that I didn't even realize I had really been longing for,” JoJo tells MTV News over Zoom.


Nevertheless Good to Know was released because the COVID-19 pandemic was in full swing, and its promotional cycle was clouded by the political and social chaos of 2020. Like several other artists, JoJo was forced to cancel her tour. While the album acquired essential praise and reached high chart positions, it failed to spawn a hit comparable to 2004’s “Leave (Get Out)” or 2006’s “Too Little Also Late.” “I did have a No. 1 R&B album with Good to Know, and that’s something I am so fucking delighted of,” she says. “But to not hear my songs on the radio, I can’t lie and act like that doesn’t matter to me. I want my music to reach as several people as possible.”


Instead of blaming the unfortunate circumstances, JoJo took the album’s lukewarm commercial reception as her own fault. By the end of 2020, she noticed herself anxiously wondering whether or not she was worthy of her place in the music industry. Around the same time, she experienced the end of a longtime “situationship” with a friend-turned-lover. “I leaned on that person for so much,” she explains. “I was questioning everything. I’m like, ‘Well, I’ll probably never fall in love again, so that’s it for me. I’m just gonna perish alone.’” Not wanting to let the hardships keep her down, JoJo then shifted her perspective and turned her feelings into Trying Not to Think About It, a 12-track project that chronicles her complex relationship with mental health.


JoJo recalls recognizing indications of depression and anxiety among some of her close family member members growing up, although she didn’t realize how directly it affected her up until adulthood. “For me, anxiety is putting also much pressure, also much weight, and also much importance on me,” she says, noting that it’s a “perfectionist mentality” that often leads her to compare her own success to that of her peers. JoJo says she’s felt like “a bit of an outcast” since she was little, nevertheless last year, that feeling escalated to questions about her purpose. “That's where a lot of Trying Not to Think About It came from, being in that negative, ruminating place of catastrophizing and thinking about, ‘What the fuck am I doing?’”


Such harsh thoughts have led her to harmful coping mechanisms, including binge drinking, overeating, and “falling into toxic relationship patterns of feeling guilt and shame.” Although thanks to opinions from a therapist — or maybe an ex-boyfriend (“[He] habitually used to therapize me, so I don’t remember”) — JoJo’s learned healthier ways of dealing with mental-health struggles. One of these is personifying her depression and anxiety as a woman named Burlinda, which inspired the opening track she created for the project, “Anxiety (Burlinda’s Theme).” “It can feel so all-consuming and dark as soon as you’re depressed,” she explains. “The thought that there’s this nasty bitch who also lives indoor me, whose name is Burlinda and who tries to take over every once in a while, I think is funny. It makes it a little bit lighter.”


That mentality may make it easier to survive with Burlinda, nevertheless it definitely doesn’t make her presence any much less irritating. “You only show up once it’s inconvenient / Habitually talkin’ loud, fill my head with lies,” she sings on “Anxiety (Burlinda’s Theme).” And if JoJo were to meet her in person, her message could be direct. “I’d mention, ‘Hey bitch’ — and I mention this with love — ‘I know you’re attempting to protect my ego. You’re attempting to protect me from a worst-case scenario… Nevertheless that’s not how I’m gonna live my life,’” she says. “‘I'm not going give attention to the negatives, what has happened in the past or could happen in the future. We're living in the present, Burlinda. I don't think that you thrive here in the present, so I'm gonna need you to sit in the back seat up until you learn how to act right.’”


JoJo’s method of healing from the low points of 2020 has included saying “yes” to fruitful possibilities in 2021 — no matter how intimidating @they could seem. The mission led her to go on Season 5 of The Masked Singer, where she finished in second place as Black Swan. “It was humbling and tough, and probably a good physical activity for me to go through,” she explains. The experience reminded her of competing on shows like Destination Stardom and America’s Most skilled Kid as a young child, once her hunger for performing was arguably its purest. “Covering and reimagining other people's songs, that’s something that I've done since I was a little bit girl. It felt good, plus it felt scary to put myself out there in that way.”


JoJo is aware her creeping feeling that she’s undeserving of her place in music may be hard for outsiders to grasp, considering she’s achieved such high successes and derived praise from the likes of Mariah Carey and Whitney Houston. “People might look at me differently than I look at myself, yet for me, I still have a lot more to go, and different tiers that I'd like to reach,” she explains. “I've been discouraged by a lot of different things in this industry, and I've literally stopped dreaming.” Yet, working through her insecurities in real life, along with creatively through Trying Not to Think About It, has led her to a more optimistic, confident place today. “I am certainly worthy of the place that I have in this industry and behind. I'm currently solidifying that spot,” she says. “I'm encouraged, I'm inspired, and I look forward to making the next album.”


Rather than striving for top-charting success with Trying Not to Think About It, JoJo simply wants the project to issue the same comfort for fans that she felt while crafting it. “I hope this sounds like a warm weighted blanket for them... I hope they know they're not alone, and that @they could be inspired to go on their own journey of finding themselves again, because it’s not just gonna be one time,” she says. “I’ve lost noticed myself each and every project, and I think it’s habitually a worthy journey to go on.”