My favorite set of SXSW in 2014 was both a surprise and also something I felt like I’d spent the last 10 years expecting: it was JoJo—yeah, that JoJo, I said to everyone who seemed perplexed at the depths of my enthusiasm—JoJo at Fader Fort, in a black baseball jersey and a latex bustier, a plaid skirt slit up to the waistline, newly released from a biblically prolonged legal battle with Blackground Records and slamming through a set like she’d never left.
That spring, she’d just released a Valentine’s Day mixtape, featuring this truly great Phil Collins cover; since then she’s been slowly ramping up to her album, forthcoming in 2016 on Atlantic. A week ago, she released a “tringle,” which is a snack-food-suggestive JoJo name for what literally anyone else would (reasonably) call an EP. It’s terrific—dark pop R&B, an old-school vocal showcase with tight, crisp production; a house track, a vengeful ballad, a torch song. JoJo hasn’t charted in a decade, but this III business reminds you that she’s only now, at 24, approaching the age you may have guessed she was if you heard her singing “Leave (Get Out)” when she was 13.
