Natalie Jane likes to keep an open mind. This is the recently adopted mantra of the 21-year-old singer-songwriter who has spent the last three years living in Los Angeles as she works to turn her massive online presence into a sustainable music career. Born Natalie Jane Janowski in Woodcliffe Lake, New Jersey, Jane is no stranger to social media. As a high school student, Jane would film and post covers to popular songs on Tiktok – and quickly gained traction to the tune of over ten million followers. The aspiring musician then did something most TikTok artists only dream of: she leveraged her digital success into a record deal with a Capitol Records and decided to forego pursuing higher education for the promise of a music career. And it seems to be paying off.
The youngest of three siblings – the rest of whom pursued traditional careers — Jane’s path was new to her parents “In the beginning my mom was so skeptical because for as long as I can remember, it’s like you go to high school, you go to college, you get a job, you have a family. Like, that was the mindset. And it took a year and a half after I moved here — after my first tour — she was like, ‘I think it’s good you didn’t go to college.” But Jane’s path to redefine herself as a serious artist while trying to turn her digital stardom into streams and ticket sales has not been easy. She admits to second thoughts shortly after arriving in Los Angeles in 2022. She moved into a Westwood apartment close to UCLA and watching her peers triggered doubts about the move. “When I first moved here, and it was before I had many friends in LA. I would see people walking around during move-in week with all of their new friends, and I was like, did I make the wrong decision? I was just so jealous of every single person that was so excited to start college while I was just sitting alone in my apartment in the beginning, and that was sad for me. That’s when I was like kind of second guessing myself, but now I have a lot of friends, so I’m good” she says and flashes a genuine smile as she reminisces on the old Natalie Jane.
When we caught up with Jane, she was coming off a tumultuous few months and her album was delayed; she felt burnt out, and it had been the longest she had gone without releasing music, but she says realizes now how different her album truly is from her previous work. “I’ve put out two eps in the past and they’ve been kind of just like I would write a song and I would post it and I would put it out into the world. There was definitely structure, but I kind of just packaged a whole bunch of different sounds in different worlds into them. Whereas I feel like for this album we took a step back. And I was like, let’s just really hone in, and now we have a clear sonic vision, and it’s the first time I feel like I was able to because we had so much time and time to think we really created something that feels like a whole project rather than a cluster of songs that I love it” Jane says emphasizing that this album The World I Didn’t Want tells a clearer story.
The album’s storytelling and Jane’s own growth is clear when we meet again after our shoot. The GV shoot afterall was done in June, and we scheduled a second interview three months later but this doesn’t faze the new Natalie Jane. She has taken time to re-center herself and the seemingly endless pivots resulted in her rediscovering her love of painting while her team works behind the scenes to build hype behind the impending album. Most recently she released a single with the incredibly popular DJ duo Loud Luxury – a sign that more artists are beginning to take notice of Jane and her loyal fanbase. As Jane takes me around her Glendale apartment while wearing her signature chrome rings, she seems like a more happy version of the woman I met three months ago. “A big thing I’ve been forcing myself to do, especially in the past six months, is just slow down. I’m trying to always jam in as many things as I can into a day, which I still do, but taking a step back and realizing it’s not about the instant gratification of like, I need this to happen now, now, now rather than I need to take my time and tell a story because that does so much more and it also just has so much more longevity, rather than feeding like my instant craving.”
It’s not only longevity in her career that Jane is thinking about; she’s recently started meditating and journaling thanks to a mix of self-improvement books saying “I’ve been reading this book called The Artist’s Way, and in addition to that, I’ve been reading a bunch of books on mindfulness and being more present. A year ago I was really struggling. I felt like I did need to do something to let my brain escape the constant anxiety, and I started journaling and I started to just think about things in a different manner from these few books that I’ve been reading and I’ve been like, super content and happy.”
A big thing I’ve been forcing myself to do, especially in the past six months, is just slow down.
When asked how this new mindset and mature version of Jane shows up in the album, she references her single “girls will b girls” saying “I wanted to write about this girl that I was so jealous of and it was gonna be an envious song and negative. Initially, I was like, girls will be girls and they’ll be jealous, and then we were talking about how girls will be girls but they’ll also stand up for each other and girls will do all these amazing things for each other. I was like why am I gonna write about something negative when we can actually write about something positive today? It was a complete shift and a complete like mind switch up and I’m so thankful it happened because now it’s like one of my favorite songs we ever made because it feels important.”
Now with the album in the rear view, Jane has time to focus on other things that bring her joy. On our zoom, she excitedly picks up her laptop and takes me on a tour of her apartment that is teeming with paintings she’s done over the past several months. Jane’s fans will be happy to know that her signature panda makes an appearance in some while other more abstract works are also present. Unsurprisingly, her art work looks professional – Jane remains quite the multi-talented artist, whether it’s her ability to perfectly mimic the minions voice or her ability to create professional level paintings.
When we’re wrapping up the call, Jane shares “this album is about leaving the world that you didn’t want in the past and getting outside of your comfort zone. A big theme is escapism and just escaping what you’ve known your whole life because I think like me, a little girl from New Jersey moved out to big city LA that was so important for me to grow as a person. And yet another thing I love about this album is I feel like 90% of what I’ve written in the past was about boys and relationships, and this album really explores other topics like my personal insecurities that I truly feel. That was really scary to write about, and that falls into the theme of this album of getting outside of your comfort zone.” When asked if she has any advice to the girl, who like Jane is making TikToks in the suburbs in hopes of pursuing their passion, she says “It’s possible. You just gotta, literally like the theme of this album is, get outside of your comfort zone and then things will happen. That’s like something I’ve been seeing in life. You just have to start because if you don’t start then you’ll never know.”
Photographer: Taurat Hossain; Beauty by Dre Campos; styled by Abid Haque; assistants Audrey Wong (Styling) and Denver Nelson (Photography)
A version of this story appears in the Winter issue of Groovevolt Magazine.
