‘Here We Go’ Coco Jones (Uh Oh!): R&B Star Hits New Heights With Tour, Album & Grammy (Cover)

After Coco Jones performed a 21-song set to kick off her tour at The Fillmore Philadelphia on May 6, she walked backstage only to find her mother Javonda hysterical and beaming with pride.

“Oh my God! It was the greatest concert I’ve ever been to in my life!” Javonda told her daughter. “… Your vocals were great. You look fabulous. The clouds behind you, the dancers, it was perfect! … I’ve seen everything; it’s the best thing you’ve ever done.”

Mamas know best, but don’t take it from Javonda. Music critics are also lauding Jones for her debut studio album, Why Not More?, praising the singer/actress’ vocal range and her music for pushing the boundaries of R&B into other genres, including soul and hip-hop, as her inspiration, Beyoncé, has done for over two decades.

“It’s definitely so rewarding to see my album out in the world and to hear people singing their favorites,” Jones tells Pollstar. “I know that this is a marathon, not a sprint. It just makes me excited for how I’m going to evolve and what this tour is going to inspire creatively for the next version of me.”

With a highly lauded album, a Grammy win last year and her ambitious “Why Not More? Tour” playing mostly theaters and large clubs across North America running through the end of June, it’s Coco Jones time. The 27-year-old born in Columbia, South Carolina and raised near Nashville is now ready to show the world her full range of talents, which she’s honed over the years and is paying dividends.

“The album is a great snapshot of where she is right now as a grown woman,” says Jeremy “J Dot” Jones, CEO of High Standardz and a producer on her album. “She’s figuring a lot of stuff out about herself and I think this album really displays that she is very well-rounded. It covers different sides of her. … As it comes out with the tour, people are just going to grow even closer to her, which is the goal here.”

Jones is connecting with fans from 33 cities in iconic venues like The Novo in Los Angeles and Nashville’s historic Ryman Auditorium and bringing her biggest production yet to not only establish herself as a rhythm and blues standout but as a star on the touring circuit.

“When I started managing Coco about a year and a half ago, we said that we really wanted to build a robust touring business for her,” says Marc Jordan of State of the Art management. “… One of the things I love about Coco is as well as being a great performer, she is also a student of the game. She trusted the process and also trusted the process of investing in herself because she wanted to give more to the fans than she had given before.”

The timing was just right with Jones selling out concerts in major markets like Philadelphia, D.C. and New York. She not only built anticipation with the release of singles like “Here We Go (Uh Oh),” which was certified gold by the Recording Industry Association of America, but also on the road playing sets at J.Cole’s Dreamville Festival in Raleigh, North Carolina, and Jazz In The Gardens in Miami Gardens, Florida.

“Festivals are a good opportunity to win over new audiences,” Jones says. “Not everybody’s going there for you, and I think it’s a good way to keep yourself humble and keep yourself hungry. And Dreamville’s been such a great place for artists to have a platform. J. Cole did an amazing thing by expanding the power of music and giving other artists a platform through his songs and through his success. Hopefully, I can use something similar one day.”

Curating her own festival may be in Jones’ future as she continues her ascent and garners respect from her peers.

“If you look at some of the comments, articles and reviews about her album, it’s not just outlets that typically cover urban-leaning R&B music but also from alternative outlets. People can recognize the artistry,” Jordan says. “I wanted her to be taken seriously by her peers, from every category of music, as an incredible singer, an incredible entertainer, an incredible writer, and all in all, an incredible artist. I think we’ve established that.”

Jones has shown her vocal talent since she was a child, including a moment when she sang — and slayed — “The National Anthem” at the tender age of 9 before an NFL game featuring the St. Louis Rams, where her father, Mike Jones, played as a defensive end.

She grew up in the entertainment industry having worked with Disney at a young age, starring in television series (“So Random!” and “Good Luck Charlie”) and the Disney Channel original movie “Let It Shine.” As the daughter of an NFL athlete and session vocalist (Javonda), Jones saw firsthand how her parents handled attention and pressure that came with notoriety while receiving plenty of support from her family to pursue her dreams.

Jones excelled as an actress and even landed a major role in Peacock’s reimagining of the popular ’90s sitcom “The Fresh Prince of Bel Air” titled “Bel-Air,” which was picked up for a fourth and final season in December.

However, music was always on her mind, and in the spirit of her recent album’s title, Jones figured she’d go for more and released songs independently before signing with High Standardz and Def Jam Records in 2022 while juggling her acting career. That same year, she dropped her EP What I Didn’t Tell You, which featured her Grammy-winning breakout single “ICU,” a track that has accumulated more than 77 million streams on Spotify and established her as a rising star.

It was around that time when Jones met and worked with J Dot, who was quickly drawn to her raw talent. In the studio, the seasoned musician and producer noticed how she challenged herself to not only refine her vocals but also her vision for her debut album. She worked closely with producers to develop music with various tempos, including one that wove in a “Britney Spears pop” sound.

“That was her idea. She explained it to me, and I was like, ‘Wow, OK. That’s a different way to blend those two,’” J Dot said about working with Jones on the single “Here We Go (Uh Oh).” “It makes it very unique for the listener, but also very real for her because she’s able to explain why it was important to her. It’s key to know why you’re doing what you’re doing, and not just going in there and wing it.”

“ICU” proved to be a major turning point for Jones, winning her a Grammy for Best R&B Performance in 2024 over megastars like SZA (for “Kill Bill”), Victoria Monét (“How Does It Make You Feel”) and Chris Brown (“Summer Too Hot”).

Another major moment helping build Jones’ momentum came in 2023 when she signed with WME. The multi-hyphenate star was riding high on the success of “ICU” and WME partner and music agent Peter Schwartz wanted to take advantage of it by getting her on the road.

“We quickly got to work,” Schwartz says. “In that year, we actually had two legs on her tour, one in August and a second leg in October and November. Those shows did excellent business, for sure.”

On this tour, Jones is playing bigger rooms in larger markets, upgrading from the 1,200-cap Fonda Theatre in L.A. to the Novo, which accommodates more than 2,300 guests. She sold 3,000 tickets at Echostage in D.C. on May 7, and her recent concert at Brooklyn Paramount in New York grossed $108,450 off 2,750 tickets sold, according to WME.

Though Jones says she feels a sense of déjà vu performing at such intimate venues, she’s entering these spaces with newfound confidence unlocked during the recording process, where she found her voice and style while incorporating music inspired by places like Nashville as well as a more “island vibes” sounds.

“I played around with a lot of tempos, with different genres, with music from different countries,” she says. “I don’t want to limit myself, so I hope people can expand their expectations when it comes to what the R&B genre is. It’s influenced by a lot, and it can be useful for more than just being upset and in your feelings and wanting to be in love. I want to feel like it fits any emotion when you listen to my album.

“I really strive to keep everyone engaged,” Jones added about fans attending her concerts. “I want people to feel like they’re getting to know me more, and it’s more of a vulnerable experience, like the slowed-down songs and the ballads. I really want people to feel where I’m coming from emotionally … [to feel like they’re] on a journey, you know what I’m saying? And the highs be really high and the lows be really real and really honest. That’s my goal, for it to be like a roller coaster.”

Some of Jones’ confidence and ability to command a room can be attributed to her experience as an actress, even if they are different worlds.

“If they do influence each other in any way, it’s the fearlessness that has to be applied to both,” Jones says. “Because when you’re acting, you can’t care about how you look, about what’s going on in the room around you. You just have to portray this character and fully let go. When you’re singing, when you’re going into a room with writers you’ve never met, when you’re working on a song and you’re trying to beat something that you’ve already done, you just have to not care about what’s going on and lose fear and find that inner confidence.”

Jones concludes the North American leg of the tour with a hometown show at Ryman Auditorium on June 26 before heading overseas for six European shows, including stops in Cologne, Berlin, Brussels, Amsterdam, Paris and London.

Schwartz says they only booked six shows in Europe because the R&B market there is slower than in the U.S., but he was enthusiastic about the presale response for those concerts.

“Less is more,” he says. “Let’s sell out, build our story. Obviously, as with the U.S., European festivals are a very big thing. So, we’re taking it one step at a time to set that up right, sell-out business on hard tickets, move into festivals and then grow that into other markets down the line.”

While the paths to stardom are similar, there are no blanket approaches to achieving success on the road, especially for those in R&B. Jordan says there is nuance to working within the genre, and it’s essential to continue working to build more and more moments, year over year, that will always keep the artist in fans’ minds.

“At the core of artist development is people who feel they can manufacture success, whether it be a viral moment online or a song that happens to do incredibly well,” Jordan says. “If you look at those moments, they never really last. What I try to tell everyone, including Coco, is don’t chase virality. Chase continuous moments that add to the development of your brand and who you are as an artist, because that’s what’s going to stand the test of time. … Constant artist development and building audience, brick by brick.”

Those bricks not only lay the foundation for Jones as an artist, but possibly the future of R&B, a genre that J Dot says went underground after peaking during the Motown era in the 1960s and again in the ’90s and early 2000s with acts like Mariah Carey, Destiny’s Child, Aaliyah, Boyz II Men and TLC dominating charts and airplay on MTV.

“In the late 2000s, I was doing a ton of R&B, and I think it just dried up,” J Dot says. “Numbers were starting to go down. I think we’re still trying to figure out the damage that was done because of platforms like Napster during that time, but it really hurt R&B. … It dominated for many years.

“But for it to start coming back, it’s just part of our cycle as humans in the music business,” he added. “We’ve had all this [music about] violence and drugs, now it’s time to get back to love again. It all aligns with my timing with Coco. I’m telling people it’s going to come back because we have Coco, Summer Walker, Ari Lennox, and there’s going to be more opportunities for that music to come back.”

Now’s a good time as ever with genres expanding into new territories faster than ever thanks to streaming. One of her peers, SZA, has become one of the faces of the current R&B movement and is currently co-headlining a stadium tour with Kendrick Lamar. Schwartz believes Jones can not only contribute to the R&B movement but also become a mainstream superstar.

“R&B is in a great place right now in general, and it’s her core genre,” Schwartz says. “The Grammy accolades reflect that, but Coco’s a pop star. I firmly believe, as does everybody on our team, that she’s more than just an R&B artist. She’s as mainstream as you can be, and I think R&B is opening up a lot. Over the last several years, you can see the ebb and flow of different genres. Hip-hop might not be as big as it was a few years ago because things come in cycles, but I think R&B is having a great time right now.”

Success is the objective for Jones, who also wants to help as many aspiring artists as she can as she ascends the charts and performs in larger venues.

“That’s the goal: to find another young, Black, talented individual whom I can help open doors for and obviously have brands that last the test of time and hopefully leave a legacy that way.”

With a Grammy win under her belt and a stellar debut, Jones is well on her way to a lasting legacy she and her mother, her No. 1 fan, can be proud of.