Jozzy: Photo by Ryan Malcolm-Campbell [MR.KOA]
The FADER’s “Songs You Need” are the tracks we can’t stop playing. Check back every day for new music and follow along on our Spotify playlist.
Let’s get this out of the way: there will likely not be a harder project title this year than Songs For Women, Free Game for N*****. That it comes attached to a dynamite R&B project is an added bonus. The album’s pedigree isn’t a shock considering the artist who made it: Jozzy is a Memphis-based singer-songwriter who has written songs with Beyoncé, Summer Walker, Jacquees, and Mary J. Blige (she also co-wrote Billy Ray Cyrus's verse on Lil Nas X’s “Old Town Road,” one of the biggest pop songs in history.) Released in late February, Songs For Women is detailed above all else, each song evidently pored over with a craftsperson’s care.
Jozzy’s presence, alternating between tender and bedroom-focused brashness, vanquishes any opportunity for sterility to emerge. That’s especially apparent on “Favorite Shirt,” a standout guitar-driven ballad from the EP’s midpoint. The entire song seems bathed in the blue glow of an Instagram spiral, Jozzy staring at the titular article of clothing on her ex’s shoulders from an insurmountable distance. “I’ve been thinkin’ about it,” Jozzy sings with defeat in the first verse, “Do you throw it on when you sleep with somebody?”
From there, the dam bursts. When Jozzy begins to see her own failings more clearly — “Ooh, you gifted, I slept on it / This took a minute, now I don’t want it” — her pace quickens with an anxiety that adds new color to the nebulous melodies behind the lyrics. Like the strongest regret-laced R&B, “Favorite Shirt” is littered with ruminations that will likely never actually get asked, instead torn up like pages of a diary and scattered across a twinkling instrumental.