As country music softly plays from a portable speaker near the pool of a private residence in Malibu, Calif., Jessie Murph is posing on the steps of an Airstream in her footwear of choice: Timberland boots with Western-inspired denim leg warmers. The style seems to riff on her favorite shoe, the snoot: part sneaker, part cowboy boot — and a perfect representation of the artist herself.
“Being from Alabama, country music was always around me,” recalls Murph, who grew up idolizing Adele, Amy Winehouse and Drake. “For a long time I resented that part of myself, so I tried to shy away from it. But then, just through accepting shit, it started to seep into my music more and more.”
That through line has since helped the 19-year-old artist carve a singular lane in a crowded field of young talent. Yet at a time when country music is enjoying a mainstream high, Murph is contemplating just how much she wants to lean in. “I’m trying to decide that for myself because I feel like everybody’s doing it now,” she says with a quick sigh. “So it almost makes me want to do something a little different because I feel like [country music] is beginning to be saturated.”
Still, on her forthcoming debut album due out this year, Murph — who seamlessly skips among country, hip-hop and biting pop — plans to blend them all across the tracklist. She has already proved her chops in each lane, appearing on Diplo’s Diplo Presents Thomas Wesley: Chapter 2 — Swamp Savant alongside Polo G and, most recently, scoring her highest-charting Billboard Hot 100 entry with “Wild Ones” alongside country hit-maker Jelly Roll. “That is truly one of the best people I’ve ever met,” Murph says of Jelly. “I feel like I could go to him about anything.”
Being raised in a “musical household” in Athens, Ala. — with a population of nearly 30,000 — Murph started writing songs when she was 9 years old. By 11, she was posting covers on TikTok and YouTube, nailing everything from David Guetta and Sia’s “Titanium” to Billie Eilish’s “Ocean Eyes” to Post Malone’s more singer-songwriter-based hits like “Feeling Whitney” and “Stay.”
After Murph started gaining traction online, her mother, a former musician, helped her daughter navigate the offers rolling in through email. (At the time, Murph was being homeschooled during the pandemic.) She signed a management deal with Disruptor’s Adam Alpert and Julie Leff in 2020, followed by a major-label deal with Columbia in 2021. Her debut single, the brooding and edgy “Upgrade,” arrived with a music video in which Murph dressed in a simple black outfit with slicked-back hair.
“That feels like a lifetime ago,” she says today, noting how much she has honed her style — and, as a result, her sound — since then. “From where I grew up, the style was really preppy, so I used to dress like that in high school. But as I found myself through music, I found myself stylistically as well. I think that also just comes with growing up … Everybody finds their own style as they get older, but I also lend a lot of it to the snoot, honestly. The snoot has inspired so much for me.”
The proof is in her hits. Her 2023 debut mixtape, Drowning, included standouts “Always Been You” and “Pray,” both showcasing Murph’s storytelling while spotlighting her Southern drawl and emotive rasp. The rest of her year was defined by her collaborations, adding one with Maren Morris titled “Texas” to her lineup.
But as she believes, the best is yet to come. She says her forthcoming debut album is the most proud she has ever felt of her music. “It’s just so truly me,” she says. “There’s some stuff on there that’s definitely unexpected … I’m rapping, I’m belting, and some of it’s slightly country. Everything I’m saying on this album, I fucking mean. It’s coming straight from the heart.”
Her latest single, the eviscerating “Son of a Bitch,” is evidence enough. While a bit of Winehouse can be heard in Murph’s soulful vocals — though she sings with more grit — the song is distinctly hers. And while rooted in the familiar concept of revenge, much like Carrie Underwood’s “Before He Cheats,” Murph’s take is more ominous, as she sings, “This side of me, she ain’t Jessie.”
For an artist like Murph, that kind of authenticity — personally and sonically — is crucial. And while she admits she has had to “overly explain” her vision in some songwriting sessions, she believes her wide-ranging interests are “less of something I’m meticulously doing and more because of who I am.”
She recently enlisted Shaboozey to open for her on tour and names Lil Baby as her dream collaborator. She’s predicting that “random” team-ups will become increasingly popular this year, expressing her excitement at a potential Lana Del Rey-Quavo release that has been teased online.
And while she has plans of headlining arenas one day (and eventually selling snoots), for now, Murph is enjoying fleeting moments of normalcy before her career kicks into overdrive. Having just performed at Hangout Music Festival, a hometown gig in Alabama’s Gulf Shores — she says the difference in crowd size from last year to now “makes me want to cry” — Murph is grounding herself with some family time. She rode bikes with her brother, laid out by the pool with her mom and later planned to watch the Winehouse biopic Back to Black.
For Murph, it’s more than a movie about one of her icons. It’s a reminder of what she herself has long been working toward. “I’ve always wanted to do this,” she says. “It’s just surreal.”
This story appears in the June 1, 2024 issue of Billboard.
