Blessing Jolie

Blessing Jolie started playing guitar at 15 with Christmas money and a voice memo app on her iPod, recording song ideas before she had any real songs. She couldn't sing well. The songs weren't there yet. None of that stopped her, and the fact that it didn't—that failure in music stung in a way nothing else did—told her everything she needed to know.

20nothing (out March 13 via Thirty Tigers/RCA) is the document of what came next: a young Nigerian American woman from Katy, Texas, navigating her early twenties with enough self-awareness to know she's still in the middle of it. NME named her one of their 100 Essential Emerging Artists for 2026, and breakout single "20teens" has drawn co-signs from Tyler, The Creator and Kehlani.

We sat down with Jolie to talk about the hustle she kept hidden from her mother, the confidence that got her here, and why writing only about herself turns out to be the most universal thing she can do.

Analogue: A lot of artists describe an internal wrestling match before committing to music. It sounds like yours was different.

Blessing Jolie: I always felt like I was good at music, even when I wasn't. I listen back to old videos now and I'm like, dang, you suck. But I always felt I was really good—I was kind of delusional in that way. I never wrestled with am I good enough? It's actually now, when I have more to compare myself to, that I get that little dysmorphia. Back then, I already felt like I was that girl.

Analogue: So where did the wrestling happen?

Jolie: The logistics. Are you really going to finish high school and not go to college because you think someone might discover you off a video? I had to make it make sense to my Nigerian mother. So I went to college for a year for computer science—mainly so she didn't lose her cool, you know. I still kept posting videos, still kept writing. The music was always running in the background. Everyone in my family knew I played guitar, they knew I sang. Did they think I was good? Probably not. But I kept doing it anyway—that really helped me build thick skin. Ironically, someone did just come and say they wanted to sign me. But at the time, you have to make it make sense for the people around you.

Analogue: How did songwriting start for you?

Jolie: It started because of Shawn Mendes. I heard his first album, and I was like, 'I want to do that.' So I went down the rabbit hole—who influenced Shawn Mendes? Ed Sheeran. Okay, Ed Sheeran writes his own songs, so I want to write songs. I was doing it before I even had a guitar, just me and a voice recorder on my iPod. At first it was just for the sake of saying I could. But what I always knew about songwriting, and why it has such a strong hold on me, is that even when I wasn't good at it, I just couldn't stop. Days and weeks with no lines, nothing coming. And I just kept going back. That's how I knew it was for me. Because I couldn't stop thinking about it, couldn't stop wanting to be good at it.

Analogue: And now the songs are about something specific.

Jolie: Now it's documentation. This is what I went through, this is what I experienced, this is what I observed. And it's a really good feeling to find out that other people—other girls, other Black girls—feel the same way. Because when I write, it's only about me. So when they listen, they're only thinking about themselves. And then it's like—oh wait, we feel the same. It connects with people in more ways than just girls being girls. Someone can grab onto the story just because they felt a certain way, or because of how I sound, or how I look. There are just so many different ways to reach it.

Analogue: The album covers your early twenties. What does it feel like to be weeks away from putting that out?

Jolie: It's a little surreal. I've been living with these songs for a while now, so it's finally like—everyone else gets to hear them. I feel really good about it. It's like a diary. I've written this part out, and now it's time to either lock it up or tear out the pages—somehow allow it to come to a completion. This chapter of my life really needs to be set free.

Analogue: You came in ultra-confident at 15 and said you're actually a little less certain now. What shifted?

Jolie: I was able to be more confident back then because there was nothing to compare it to. No years of songs, no years of vocal work. Now I want to top the last song, top the last lyric—that's where the is this good enough? comes from. But I think it comes full circle. Even if these aren't the best songs I'll ever write, they deserve to exist. You can't skip a chapter just because you've figured more out since then—you'll never show the growth. I'm glad we get to release this part and finally show almost a decade's worth of work. And hopefully it doesn't take me another decade to release the next one.

VISIT: Blessing Jolie