Not gonna lie: Pop singer JoJo on new music, memoir and more ahead of Pittsburgh show

As pop singer JoJo revels in a new era at only age 34, she is truly enjoying her Too Much To Say tour, which hits Pittsburgh early next month.

“I’ve loved it. I’ve really loved it,” she said last week in a Zoom call. “It’s wonderful to be celebrating 20 years since I started out as basically a fetus and then to still be having new experiences and to still be like, OK, this is the best tour that I’ve put on and just to feel like I’m growing and getting the opportunity to connect with people through this new music and through the old music as well and tying it all up together, and it’s really fun.

JoJo — whose real name is Joanna Levesque — signed with Blackground Records at age 12 after an appearance on “America’s Most Talented Kid,” spawning the gold-certified single, “Leave (Get Out).” After another hit single in 2006 with “Too Little Too Late,” JoJo became embroiled in a lengthy legal dispute with her label, battled drug abuse and alcohol addiction and dealt with other personal struggles. In 2024, she released a memoir, “Over the Influence,” which delves into much greater detail into those difficult moments.

In recent years, she’s won a Grammy for her duet with PJ Morton on “Say So,” played the role of Satine in “Moulin Rouge!” on Broadway and, in January, released her latest EP, “NGL,” feeling much stronger than she’s ever been.

“I feel really grateful for that feeling because life is cyclical, and I’m really trying to be present and embrace this strength and the confidence that I feel because undoubtedly I’ll feel a different way sometime,” she said. “But I’m in a season now that I’m really, really enjoying. And that’s what’s most fun about being on the road is that I feel equipped to roll with the punches. It’s such a beautiful thing to perform live and to have it be different every night.”

JoJo, who recalled playing a concert on a bridge for Pittsburgh’s Light Up Night in 2015, will play Stage AE on April 3, with Emmy Meli opening the show.

In call from an off day in Boise, Idaho, JoJo discussed the “NGL” EP, first drafts of her memoir, learning about love, performing on Broadway and more:

With the new EP, was there anything that you were listening to that inspired it?

Yeah, I listened to so much stuff across genres, but I was listening to a lot of Rick James and Tina Marie that inspired me. That inspired “Nobody,” for example, which is the first song of the EP. Listening to the intro for “One Last Time” is inspired by the D’Angelo version of “Can’t Hide Love,” which is something that he did a live (version) … but we were listening to everything from Motown classics to Post Malone and from John Coltrane to Sabrina Carpenter, just listening to all different types of stuff and having fun.

With the album title of “NGL” is that a sign of your willingness to speak your mind and be truthful?

Yeah, I released a book last year called “Over the Influence” and it’s in the same feeling and spirit of just accepting the parts of myself that have seemed for a long time like maybe they were chaotic or they were in conflict with each other. But actually nobody is just one thing or just one dimension. We have different flavors and different seasons and different ways of expressing ourselves. So the title “NGL” is just basically, I’m not gonna lie about all these random things that I am. Sometimes I feel confident. Sometimes I feel like I’m questioning everything. Sometimes I’m strong. Sometimes I feel weak. And I think that it’s in that duality that there’s the human that is available to connect and tell stories.

With writing the book, were you ever concerned about oversharing or was it pretty much like everything was on the table?

I didn’t wanna be unkind to anybody or myself. I wanted to do it all justice. And since I’m a first-time author, I just wasn’t sure how to go about that. So I went through the process of writing many drafts. So the first draft was extremely brutal and raw and then thankfully, through working with my editor really closely, I learned how to tell the truth while also being considerate of what’s most important, what’s helpful to share, what would be harmful to share. So that was good though, but I got to get it all out in its rawest form and then tailor it to what would be cool to share, because, yeah, do I overshare a little bit in the book? I do, but that’s also who I am.

Did getting that out on paper help you process it all too?

It did. I think that I feel a lot lighter in my life as a result of not just the act of putting it out but the catharsis of even writing about the 33 years that I’ve experienced thus far. I think that the putting it out was cool but even if I never did, I think that I would have felt even lighter just because when you see things in black and whites, things can start to make more sense. I felt a lot of confusion I think, particularly in my teens and 20s, that I look back on with hindsight and things make more sense.

With “Too Much to Say,” was there anybody in particular or anything that sparked that song?

Yeah, that song we actually wrote, my friend Sebastian Kole, who is an amazing artist — he goes by Pynkbeard as well on the artist side — he’s so dope. We have written together a lot and that was before I started the process of writing my book. So when I came in to make an EP, I had “Too Much to Say” and I had “Start Over.” I had those two songs to build off from there. So since I hadn’t gone through the process of examining my life and what the (expletive) was just going on the past 20 years or 33 years, I felt like I had so much to say that I was kind of pent up, so much regret or embarrassment or insecurity that I hadn’t processed. And also strength and badassery and ego and all these things that I just didn’t even know where to begin. So we wrote the song from that place. And I think that I was like, I love being single, but also everybody’s having babies. So is it OK, all these different conflicting feelings?

I don’t wanna delve into the specifics of your dating life, but are there lessons that you’ve learned about love over these years?

Oh my God, yes, I learned so many lessons about love that it’s so corny and I never understood it or believed it, but everything starts with self-love. Our relationship to anybody else, whether it’s to my manager, to my audience, to a romantic partner, I have to make sure that my relationship with myself is healthy, that I’m feeling alive and fulfilled and sensitive to the things that are going on. And I really do think that romantically and just in our other relationships too, but we attract mirrors of ourselves.

So I’ve learned that anything that I had an issue with in previous relationships, I can also look within myself and say, what was it about me that attracted me to this person who I have this conflict with now or whatever? How did I contribute to this conflict or where we are? So I’ve learned a lot over the years. And I think that introspection has been helpful for me and believing in the idea that we’re all co-creating an experience together. So “Ready To Love,” for example, is about realizing the work that I had done on myself over the years and saying, I’m not going to be insane and keep going back to the same relationship, expecting it to be different. I have to make space for something new because I feel like something new. So I want to give healthy love a shot, give it a chance by making space for someone. And you can’t do that when you keep going back and being insane and thinking, OK, maybe it’ll be different.

With the book and the EP, do you see them as a pair, like they go together?

I think they kind of do go together. I think the last few chapters of the book definitely set up the era that I’m in right now. And right now I’m figuring out how to live life in a way that feels inspiring for whatever the next chapter is. I’m like, what will I write about next, whether that’s in book form or poetry or more songs or whatever. Yeah, it does feel like they are kind of a pair. And it’s so exciting when I see people holding up my book in the audience. It’s something that I never dreamed might be a part of my journey, but it is. And it’s been a really beautiful one.

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Getting to perform on Broadway with “Moulin Rouge!,” how did that change your singing? Do you feel like you’re singing differently now?

I do feel like I’m singing differently now. I didn’t grow up with technique. So me learning how to sing sustainably and healthfully has been a process that I’ve been on for the past probably eight years. And being on Broadway was a challenge that I was really looking for in my life. So when the opportunity came, I jumped at it and I dove in wholeheartedly.

Being around some of the best performers in the world — I believe Broadway people that do it eight times a week, they’re cut from a different cloth and they are truly some of the best entertainers out there — gave me the chance to rise to that and cut my teeth in a different way, learn how to sing from a healthful standpoint, sing without some of the tension that I’ve held in my body over the years and just like get over a lot of the fear and insecurity because you just have to. The schedule is too crazy to hold on to things. And I really wanted to let go. And Broadway gave me the chance to do that and to find community in my new city, which is New York. I moved from L.A. to New York and have just been really loving being back on the East Coast as well.

It sounds like it’d be a pretty drastic change to go from the world of pop music into Broadway without that training.

Well, thankfully, this was probably the most natural transition. I mean, although I’m singing in a healthier, more musical theater type of way, “Moulin Rouge” is full of pop songs. So they are kind of more “legit versions,” the arrangements are more musical theater or just grander, more luxurious. But it was a really natural progression, I think, for me to go from singing pop, which, singing pop in a studio can definitely affect the way that you arrive to things. So I’m really grateful to now have more theater experience and I’ve also workshopped other musicals. And I’m developing a musical from the ground up as well, an original. I even did some operatic training, so it’s fun to feel like a student. And I definitely felt that on Broadway and I continue to feel like that.

How do you pick the covers that you’re doing right now. Are there certain emotional ties to these songs?

Yeah, for example, one of the songs that’s in my rolodex of songs to cover for this tour is Teddy Swims’ “Lose Control.” It’s a song that I think is so refreshing to hear on the radio. It’s in that six-eight time signature and it’s so soulful and it’s a bit unhinged in the lyrics and a little dangerous and you lose yourself. I love that. I love singing songs like that. And so sometimes it’s a song I wish I wrote or song I want to feature on and I want to collab with that artist.

With SZA, she’s another artist that I cover, I love the way she writes so much. It’s so inspiring to me. So even getting her cadences in my mouth, just singing and in the way that she wrote things, it’s just fun. So I think that this time in my life, I’m just looking to do things that make me feel alive, that invite connection in, whether it’s with whoever’s in the room, that whatever we’re creating together and also just connecting to myself and the things that bring me joy.