Baby RoseSouthern neo-soul sensation Baby Rose (aka Jasmine Rose Wilson) loves her new golden life in Los Angeles, California. "It's beautiful here," she enthuses. "I mean, when you chew the meat and spit the bones, you get anything you want – a beach, a mountain, damn desert…
“You can get anything you're looking for here – but that's both sides. I just tend to search for the nature and find the medicinal properties of what California as a state has to offer."
Aside from being a biophile, perhaps most of all Wilson cherishes a restored '70s studio, 64Sound, in Highland Park with vintage recording equipment – "a very hidden gem in LA" that she wavers in identifying. "I don't want people to use it and book it!," the singer/songwriter jokes. "So I'm like, 'I don't know if I should say it.'"
Here, Wilson discovered the groove for the wistful YEARNALISM – her third album the charm. Imagine Baby Rose's Lonely Hearts Club Band. But she also considers YEARNALISM a panacea to AI pop slop.
Wilson is Zooming from an LA apartment, speaking in front of an azure Californian skyline – her demeanour cheerful and digressive. She's busy.
The day YEARNALISM drops, the distinctively husky contralto will join English star Olivia Dean as "special guest" on her North American tour, The Art Of Loving Live, encompassing several evenings at New York's Madison Square Garden come August. "I'm gonna be touring the whole summer on the biggest stages I've ever performed on."
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The two have already bonded as Dean popped by Wilson's own gig at London's Jazz Café in 2024. Wilson is ambitious, only artistically – the trappings of fame holding less appeal. "I aim high," she declares.
Wilson's birthplace is Washington DC but, as a tween, she relocated with her mother, a single parent, to Fayetteville, North Carolina – and its Southern traditions shaped "Baby Rose".
"When I moved there from DC, I didn't understand it – it was just like a culture shock and it completely slowed me down. My comfort was the foyer – the piano in the foyer and coming home from school and playing and then painting it red, because I loved Elton John, and just kind of putting myself in this place of, 'I just wanna write really great songs; that's what I wanna do. I love poetry and I love writing music.'"
In Fayetteville, Wilson determined to pursue music professionally. "I owe a lot to Fayetteville – and just the South in general," she says. "Those were my first shows performing in front of my aunties at the damn Thanksgiving – five-years-old, 'Read your poem,' 'OK.'"
Wilson's mother dedicatedly nurtured her "artist development" – "I still am just like, 'Wow.'" Because her mother had industry ties, the prodigy spent time in the studio.
But "Baby Rose" was "born" in Atlanta, Georgia, where Wilson attended college – the city coincidentally a hub for R&B and hip hop in the '90s with the 'Hotlanta' phenom. "That's where I first took that name," she continues. "[And] that's where I first started to actually release music in 2017."
Wilson fell into a scene. "I found community in Atlanta as an adult and was able to really speak from my own experience and things of that nature. So I owe a lot to the South for giving me that safe space to really learn and to grow and to make bad decisions…
“My God, I did some dumb shit early! Make stupid decisions early when no one is looking, whether it be bad contracts or whatever the fuck, so that it's just like, 'OK, great, we are new – everything is new.'"
Wilson's ascent has been incremental but, even early, she won champions in SZA (now a friend) and James Blake. In 2019, following a mixtape, Wilson debuted independently with To Myself – a break-up album and home to her break-out ballad Show You. She teamed with J Cole's Dreamville Records, partnering Ari Lennox (and Sudanese-American rapper Bas) on Self Love for the Grammy-nominated compilation Revenge Of The Dreamers III.
However, Wilson faced challenges. Darcus Beese, who'd famously A&Red Amy Winehouse and was then President and CEO of Island Records US, signed her purely to reissue To Myself – still praising her as "a jazz singer that had the voice of a Nina Simone" ahead of his appearance at 2025's BIGSOUND.
Let go, Wilson aligned herself with the boutique US label Secretly Canadian – renowned for launching indie acts like The War On Drugs (and which currently has serpentwithfeet on its roster).
In 2023 she returned with Through And Through, a rumination on toxic romance. The Mid-Western MC Smino guested on the funky I Won't Tell, accompanied by a cinematic video – Wilson robbing stores with a girl gang. She's since ventured into dance music, linking with Welsh DJ/producer Jamie Jones for Rolling Thunder – rollerdisco supported by tastemakers Pete Tong, MK, and Claptone.
Rolling out YEARNALISM, Wilson is satisfied with her career trajectory. "I think that this is a testament of just patience and persistence and trusting God's timing."
She recalls that, in early 2020, "everything was happening" – a performance on NPR's Tiny Desk a pivotal juncture. But Wilson lost momentum as the COVID-19 pandemic struck. "We had COVID come and just humble everything and bring everything back to ground zero." She had to rebuild.
"When I'm able to look around now and look at my catalogue and see that I didn't compromise on the mission at hand – like on where I was at the moment writing and being very true to that and, with what I knew, doing the best I can – I just see growth.
"I think that me coming out with this album, YEARNALISM, in the times that we're in, where we need love and connection and desire and just humanity more than ever – that is just a testament. You gotta trust God's timing, 'cause now it means a lot more than just a reflection of my life and things that I've learned so far."
YEARNALISM reverberates with gospel, blues, and jazz. In fact, Wilson's most surprising influence, that of mythic '60s rocker Janis Joplin, is apparent on the opener When I'm Gone. She previously duetted on Leon Thomas' late-night I USED TO, off 2024's lauded MUTT, which scored 'Best R&B Album' at the Grammys. And the pair reunite for YEARNALISM's slinky first single, Friends Again – now Wilson's top song on Spotify.
Wilson applied insights gained particularly from recording Slow Burn, a joint psych-soul EP with hip Canadian instrumentalists BADBADNOTGOOD – jamming with live musicians and utilising analogue gear "to really create something that is extremely hands-on in a time where AI is happening and there's so many debates about the future of music," she states. "I feel great to be on the right side of history with this project."
In the studio, Wilson reconvened with her Show You cohort Biako Bueno as co-executive producer – "my brother from day one." She also collaborated with other quiet achievers, including Thomas "Tom" Brenneck (a member of the Daptone Records fold who worked extensively alongside soul legend Charles Bradley and plays guitar in NY's Menahan Street Band) and Ryan James Carr (who has production credits for Durand Bernarr and Vince Staples) in her "wrecking crew".
"I made a decision that cohesion was extremely important to me – especially coming off the Slow Burn project, which was done in a week. We made it in a week and we went and got it mix to master within a couple of days and it was done – and [there] was no room for overthinking and overcooking it. I thought that there was brilliance in that rawness – like I could feel it to a different level.
"We were able to capture that cohesion and really flesh things out, cutting those things to tape and having that throughout. I feel like bass and drum are the heartbeat of the songs. So at least, if you have that, you can be as expressive however you wanna be.
“And then running my vocal through tape after the fact, too – even in its rawest form, it's something just very special to me because it shows 'me' in a lot of different places."
Above all, YEARNALISM is a relatable concept album. Wilson, purposeful and outrospective, explores resilience but, more so, desire in the digital age when, despite us being hyper-connected, loneliness has emerged as a health epidemic – people turning to dating apps or interacting with chatbots and virtual companions. (She has herself sought therapy for anxiety and depression.)
Regardless, Wilson wished for YEARNALISM to be soulful.
But the album doesn't mirror Wilson's reaching a crossroads. "I think, with this collection of songs, they're coming from a lot of different places and times." If anything, she encapsulates the intangible.
"It just feels like different examples of desire, different examples of yearning – whether it's for another person or for something you can't have or just general peace and expansion, just to be the best I can be in my fullest potential in this life, how short it is, you know?"
Her message? "I'm sending you my love because, listen, if I've been through it, you've been through it, we've all been through it – but there's so much you don't know yet and there's so much I don't know yet and so we gotta stick around to be able to see what's next. Don't give up now – like it's just getting good."
Ultimately, YEARNALISM reveals a revitalised self-belief. "I love this album for having a lot more hope than prior projects that I've had and just kind of offering a little bit more confidence and empowerment – which is new for me." Notably, it ends with lyrics to herself – the gentle Jasmine's Sonnet.
Today there is a prevalent apprehension among artists over artificial intelligence. On her burner Instagram account, SZA has sparked a conversation about how the technology is exploiting Black musicians. Singling out Diplo, a vocal AI advocate, she alleged that he has equity in the AI generative music creation platform Suno (which he subsequently denied).
SZA ascertained that her music has been used in training datasets. "If [you're] a musician and you support this degenerate shit ? [You're] disgusting and there's NOTHING YOU COULD EVER SAY TO ME TO MAKE THIS OKAY."
Wilson, too, is perturbed by the spectre of AI. "I think that there needs to be rules and regulations," she observes. "[But] we're still waiting on rules or regulations on streaming." Wilson rues that AI-powered songs from a Xania Monet are attracting US radio airplay, "which is an extremely competitive thing to do, to make it on one of those 200 slots – I still to this day have never done that."
The star laments the encroachment of AI on Black gospel, alluding to Solomon Ray – generated by entrepreneur Christopher Townsend, also known as the Mississippi rapper Topher, a conservative pundit and Donald Trump canvasser.
Late last year Ray's single Find Your Rest controversially rocketed into Billboard's Hot Gospel Songs chart – which "really hits home" for Wilson. "I don't think that people care enough," she posits.
"They just are like, 'Oh, this music is good!' I'm like, 'Oh my God, Auntie, please stop – like you don't understand it's the problem.' They don't give a damn. So it's just to a point we're still trying to educate our parents on how to discern what is real and what's not, so that we don't get into some bullshit."
Wilson is indignant that super-producers are extolling AI – the '90s R&B pioneer Timbaland introducing the "A-pop" Tata Taktumi. "I think that it's so sad when you see producers that are icons – I think about Diplo and Timbaland and people like that – who are just like, 'Nah, this is what it is, get down or lay down.'
“I'm just like, 'Why the fuck are you destroying your legacy, bro? Just be old and be a good person – like just be cool.' You don't even have to say anything. For you to just choose that is so crazy to me."
Yet Wilson is optimistic that passionate audiences will reject AI. "It feels sometimes like an insurmountable battle, but all I can do is just focus on history – and what history says is, with any type of revolution, there's always a counter-renaissance. As much as music has changed and evolved – we've seen it change so many times over and over – there are some genres that are just not going anywhere. A great song is not going anywhere."
Indeed, the AI boom may already be having a converse effect. Avant 'n' B, the innovative R&B of the digital era, with proponents such as Frank Ocean, SZA, and Kelela defying genre conventions to merge art-pop, indie and electronica, is 15-years-old.
On Reddit, R&B purists are discussing how so far the 2020s has no sound, bar '90s nostalgia. But the success of Dean and RAYE with their neo-soul revival suggests that listeners are craving authenticity and songcraft rather than futuristic aesthetics and experimentation.
Wilson admires Alicia Keys' number If I Ain't Got You from 2003 as it's timeless. The same goes for Dean's The Art Of Loving, which secured her the Grammy for 'Best New Artist'. "That's what I aimed to create with YEARNALISM – something that just transcends any type of sonic indicator. We're just using real instruments. You can't place it when it's just a real instrument and a great song, when you take it to the heart of things.
"So I'm gonna let AI do what AI is gonna do, because it's a bigger fight than me. But all I can do, [all] anyone can do, is to lead by example and to create spaces that are physical and not rely solely on the Internet and social media to connect with people. Get off social media for a little while and go check in with yourself and with others."
AI hasn't infiltrated "the live space" – and this is partly why Wilson is excited to hit the road with Dean. "When I look at Olivia's show, it's very much rooted in the song. It's nothing crazy. She's iconic and she's this beautiful angel, but I did research and I was watching how she opened up for Sabrina [Carpenter's 2025 Short n' Sweet Tour] and how it was so rooted in the song and her just not necessarily being Miss Entertainer, but like, 'Let me connect with you' – 'cause you're winning people over.
“That's all opening is. It could go good; it could go bad. You never know how many people are actually going to become your fan as well. But, just to see her be so vulnerable and so about the music, it's like, 'Oh, I'm gonna have a blast. This is about to be the most aligned tour I've ever done in my life.' It takes so much pressure off like, 'I gotta do a lot of showy things and this and that.'"
Wilson is expanding her horizons. She's had syncs and soundtrack contributions for TV programs like Issa Rae's HBO hit Insecure and, again with Dreamville, the movie Creed III. In 2025 Wilson made her silver screen premiere as a wedding singer in Celine Song's romantic comedy Materialists, a box office smash starring Dakota Johnson, Chris Evans and Pedro Pascal.
"Oh my God, it was incredible," she exclaims. "It was my first time on screen and I definitely got the bug. So I started doing some acting classes."
Wilson's kindred spirit, Thomas lately wrapped his inaugural Australian tour – and it would be opportune for her to head our way. "I wanna go to Australia so badly," she chuckles. "Y'all are 18 hours away – something along that line? So we're gonna figure it out… Again, I plan, God laughs. But starting out with a crazy festival or something like that and then being able to do a small tour would be crazy. It would be amazing. I would love that. And I see that happening next year.
"I think that a lotta doors are going to open up for me doing [Dean's] tour… Doing this as an independent artist, I'm not gonna lie, it costs a lot of money. [But] I'm not going to skimp or hold back on an experience when I know the magnitude of it and I know what it's gonna take to really cut through.
“So it's an investment on my part. But I can see it leading to one of my tenets of success, which is being able to perform to the extent that I want to perform – which is [with] horns and strings and the vocalist."
At any rate, Wilson is savouring the present. "I don't want [success] fast. I love the pace that I'm at – and I'm so grateful. I've had a beautiful career that has been sustainable. In so many ways for me, I just define success a lot differently."
And, amid global uncertainty, Wilson aspires for YEARNALISM to resonate widely. Again cognisant that, after the pandemic, youth are socially isolated and miss human exchange and a sense of belonging, she recently initiated the Yearners Anonymous sessions, the first "night of music and emotion" in London "bringing people together to talk about our feelings and to talk about what we're going through," she says.
More than grassroots album promotion, Wilson is manifesting "the change that I wanna see in creating community and hoping that it just becomes a domino effect that can bring us to connection and not being so fearful of the future, but preparing and being there for each other." She even has a Yearners Anonymous hotline.
"It's just like I always trade what I want for me for what God wants for me – because I was cool with where I was, but now I'm about to be doing arenas with Olivia! Shout out to her. Yeah, life is going to look a lot different I presume this time next year. It's gonna look a little bit different."
Baby Rose’s YEARNALISM arrives on July 10th via Secretly Canadian.
