INTERVIEW: Jessie Murph talks her music, career and fighting against people who try to bring you down: "People telling me ‘you can't say that' made me say it more."

America’s Jessie Murph is a multi-talented artist who taught herself to play guitar, keyboard and ukulele growing up in Alabama. Last year she seemingly rose from nowhere to accumulate streams in the hundreds of millions after releasing just six singles.

Raised on country music, but also with a love of hip-hop, she began writing and recording her own songs in her bedroom. While she was refining her songwriting skills she began uploading covers to TikTok and YouTube. “I put this one cover up of ‘Titanium’ and I remember telling my mother, ‘Mom! People are watching this!’” she says. Her views, and fans, increased in size rapidly and soon she was attracting attention from the industry. In 2021 she signed a record deal with Columbia Records and her debut single ‘Upgrade’ was released.

Murph creates music that is a hypnotic, immersive experience. Mixing pop with hip-hop, it is heartfelt, personal, emotive and grandly cinematic in its production. Murph’s voice is a thing of both beauty and power, with a beguiling huskiness and depth.

Racking up over 20 million streams in the first three months of 2022 alone, Murph is without a doubt one of the most exciting new talents in music today and has the potential to become even bigger in the coming years. We recently caught up with her to chat about her career to date and rising above people who try and bring you down.

Hi Jessie, so lovely to talk to you. My goodness you have some pipes on you! How are things going in your incredibly talented musical world?
You know what? They're going pretty good!

I love that swagger there! You are self taught on guitar, keyboard and my favourite ukulele, and began writing recording music in your room, which I love about the day and age that we're in because we get to hear more talent like yourself. This is a delicious trip, tell me a little bit about your story and musical journey.
Yeah, I started writing songs and playing instruments when I was really young, like 10 or 11. I feel like I just have always had such a deep love for it. I always knew I wanted to do it.

That was just what you wanted to do! You were raised on country music and the came in your love of hip hop. Talk to me about your musical journey of discovery and inspiration.
I did grow up with a lot of country music, being from Alabama. But as I got older, I realised that I was obsessed with hip hop, it's all I listen to, with a little bit of country, you know. You can kind of hear in my music, but I'm extremely passionate about both, and pop music as well, I love it.

Both country and hip hop are heavily, heavily male dominated genres, obviously there are women in there, but it's very much divided, shall we say. You're going at it as a young woman, and anyone who's young going into this, but in a very male saturated industry and genre, I imagine there must have been a certain amount of second guessing. Can you talk me a little through your approach to music?
I grew up in a really small town, and everybody was like, ‘you need to act like a lady, you need to not say that’ about the things I was saying in my songs. With hip hop and country being male dominated, I love that about those genres, that's what almost draws me to it. Because I'm not a dude, but I can say the same shit they can. That really motivated me to be more angstful in my songs.

With the music you do, and I guess the superhuman that you channel into it, what is ‘being a lady’ to you’? What does that mean?
You know, I really hate that phrase, because I heard it a lot growing up.

Isn’t it awful?!
It’s awful! I'm like, what the fuck does that mean? I really don't think it means shit, you should be who you want to be.

I think that’s greatest answer. ‘I don't think it means shit! I read that you had a less than ideal youth in quite a conservative town with incredibly conservative values, and that comes into your music. Can you talk to me a little bit about your history within that element of society and how it affected you as the artist that you are today?
Yes, of course. As I was saying earlier, people were very against the things I was saying in songs. I started on TikTok, so everybody would watch my TikToks and send them around, and the parents more so than anybody were just not having it, because of the things I was saying. And them telling me ‘you can't say that, you need to act like a lady’ made me like, ‘okay, I'm gonna say it more’. I feel you can hear in my earlier songs that they're a little bit more explicit and that's why, because I was so like, ‘oh, I can't? I'm gonna do it the most I can now!’

Do you think there's something incredibly empowering about being joyously spiteful?!
That's one of my favourite emotions!

I'm with you on that one! You launched your career on TikTok and your covers trended massively, and you were just like ‘I'm going to run with this’. That's a huge decision to make, particularly coming from a background where people aren't championing what you were saying. Was there ever any trepidation with running with your career?
You know, 100%. And I feel like everybody has that, it’s the little voice in their head that’s like ‘what if?’ But at the same time, you really have to push that out. I had to be all in or not in at all and I was like ‘fuck it’. But still, sometimes these days when I write a song, if it's too personal, I pull back and I don't want to tease it, or I don’t want to put it out.

As a young female solo artist, In the time that you've been within this industry, have you've ever felt you've needed to push harder or be louder or be better or stronger to be taken seriously within the industry with regards to creative decisions?
Not necessarily. I have an amazing team around me but there are times where I have to stand my ground and I have like a little voice in my head that's ‘trust your gut’. Most of the time that comes into play with certain lyrics or production elements, but overall, it's been pretty great so far.

Beautiful. You have some incredible visuals to your music. The sobering camera of ‘Always Been You’ and then your gorgeous revisit to school with ‘When I'm Not Around’, they are like mini films. Do you always see a song when you're creating it?
I'm not gonna lie to you, I really don't. I'm trying to get better about that because shooting the music videos is honestly, one of my favourite parts of being an artist, I love it so much. So I'm trying to get more in touch with my directing side.

Lastly before I leave you, what else is coming up for you, Jessie?
I have some shows in London soon, and then I'm going on tour this summer, so I'm really excited about that. And just more music coming out!

‘Pray’ is out now via Columbia Records/Sony Music. You can download and stream here.

To keep up with all things Jessie Murph you can follow her on Instagram, Facebook, TikTok and Twitter.