In Rotation: Alexia Jayy

When Lauryn Hill calls you up to her stage at the 2026 Grammys, you either freeze or you testify. Alexia Jayy chose the latter. The Irvington, Alabama vocalist didn’t just stumble into that moment. She has been sharpening her instrument since her toddler days in the church choir, eventually taking home an Amateur Night win at the Apollo Theater at exactly nine years old. You hear that deep Southern gospel lineage in every run she attempts. A lot of vocalists who make it to the finals of a reality show—as Jayy did on Season 29 of The Voice with a three-chair-turning cover of Aretha Franklin—end up trapped making sterile, over-belted cruise ship music. Jayy dodges that trap completely on her own records. She leans heavily into the raw, unvarnished soul of her Alabama roots. Her 2021 debut "Who Raised You" set the foundation, but her recent run of singles under Julius Talent Partners shows a mother of three who is fully locked into her pocket. Take her February drop "Feels Right." The production strips away the clutter. A dragging drum break sits under crisp Wurlitzer keys, leaving a massive pocket for Jayy’s vocal to just sit and swing. She never over-sings the hook. She lets the groove do the heavy lifting, sliding into a mid-tempo cadence that feels like a Sunday cookout in late July. Then there’s "Brag," a track currently climbing Apple Music’s The Cosign and New in R&B playlists. The streaming algorithms are finally catching up to the talent, with Spotify throwing "Feels Right" onto Fresh Finds R&B while college radio stations from Boston's WERS to Everett's KSER put her in heavy rotation. We get a lot of R&B that sounds mathematically engineered for a TikTok transition. Jayy makes music for adults who actually read the liner notes and know exactly who Willie Hutch is. It’s grown, it’s grounded, and it’s f***ing phenomenal. Hit play below.