Since introducing herself with "Figures" last year, Jessie Reyez has impressed us with her ability to mix raw, unfiltered emotion with addictive melodies. When she's at her best, she's able to funnel wild human energy into the accessible framework of pop music—and that's exactly what she does on her new song "Phone Calls."
Telling Annie Mac that the track was written as a response to people who have "switched up" and acted differently around her since she's seen success, she explained that it's also about "respecting people that were down with me from the beginning. People that didn't really have anything to gain or people that just had faith to have faith. People that were riders just to be riders."
Also, I know she showed flashes of this on Kiddo, but holy shit, Jessie has bars on this one. I'm patiently waiting on the Jessie Reyez rap mixtape now.
Continue for her stripped-down version of "Shutter Island" in our yard at SXSW 2016.
And, um, here's an interview that didn't totally go as planned...
