Jahnah Camille (pronounced as “Hannah”) is a rising, 20 year-old Birmingham, AL-born and-based singer/songwriter and musician, who can trace the origins of her music career to her childhood: Overhearing her father’s guitar lessons, she first picked up a guitar when she was four, and by the time she turned 10, she was writing her own songs.
Throughout her life, supportive coincidences have pushed Camille’s creative tenacity. Her mother encouraged an elementary school-aged Jahnah to perform for their apartment’s maintenance man, who then gifted her a red Gibson SG and an amplifier. At a hippie kids camp, she met a mentor, who helped to champion her early crowdfunded recordings.
“My mom was always having me sing and play guitar for people,” says Jahnah. “I’ve always had people who believed in me, and I feel like I’ve internalized that. That’s been really beautiful.”
Later opportunities to open for acclaimed artists like Clairo and Soccer Mommy led to her burgeoning status as a keenly self-examining indie rock singer/songwriter in a Birmingham scene saturated with punk and hardcore bands — many of which she played with in her earliest DIY shows.
“The first year after I graduated high school was kind of horrifying,” says Jahnah. “I had just basically broken up with most of my band. I wasn’t going to college. I was seeing how everyone else that I had known growing up, their lives were changing. I knew that whatever happened in my life, it wasn’t going to be that, and there wasn’t really any proof that things were going in a positive direction.”
The rising Birmingham-based artist’s sophomore EP, the Alex Farrar-produced My sunny oath! is slated for a June 13, 2025 release through Winspear. The EP comes on the heels of a run of tour dates with Blondshell and previous shows opening for TOPS,Soccer Mommy and Clairo — and the success of her debut EP, last year’s i tried to freeze light, but only remember a girl.
My sunny oath! is set in the pressure cooker of new adulthood and is reportedly features a defiant collection of alt-rock, lo-fi grit and sardonic grunge that channels Jahnah Camille’s influences, including The Sundays, Liz Phair, Minnie Ripperton and Japanese Breakfast among others.
In the lead-up to the EP’s release, I’ve written about two of its previously released singles:
- “what do you do,” a 90s/120 Minutes MTV-era indie rock inspired anthem, anchored around a classic grunge rock structure paired with the young artist’s remarkably self-assured vocal turn and uncanny knack for an enormous, well-placed hook. “I wrote this while trying to understand the feeling of losing control,” the rising Birmingham-based artist says, “I was paralyzed by a need to control how other people saw me and needed to write about it.”
- “sit with you (pain),” a song that begins with a lush and dreamy, singer/songwriter, acoustic guitar section with gently rumbling feedback that slowly builds up into a full-throated, bombastic, feedback and grungy power chord-driven anthem. While continuing to showcase a young songwriter, who can craft a big, rousingly anthemic hook and chorus, the song is anchored in deeply lived-in and earnest hurt. The song “is about cutting someone out of your life who you still care for deeply,” she explains. “All of your critiques and drawbacks are still secondary for the love that you have. I wanted to make a habit of doing things that were good for me even if they hurt.”
My sunny oath!‘s third and latest single, the slow-burning and languorous “summer scorch” sees the rising, young singer/songwriter pairing a dreamily yearning delivery with strummed guitar, a simple yet propulsive backbeat that builds up to a big string-driven bridge. While evoking the stickiness of a humid, deep South summer afternoon, the song is rooted in real, lived-in, self-doubt, fear of rejection and desperate hope.
“I wrote it about a crush that I never even talked to,” the rising young singer/songwriter explains. “I was just like, ‘Would I be able to keep myself? Can I be trusted with a romantic relationship?’”
The accompanying video by Harrison Shook, is a hazily shot visual that follows a brooding Jahnah Camille on and near a stool in front of suburban-styled house and what appears to be an abandoned warehouse. The visual also evokes a similar humid, haziness.
Jahnah Camile is about to embark on a tour opening for Blondshell on a series of West Coast dates before ending this run with an appearance at Savannah‘s Dog Days Festival. Check out tour dates below.
Tour Dates
May 28 – Solana Beach, CA @ Belly Up Tavern *
May 30 – Los Angeles, CA @ The Fonda *
May 31 – San Francisco, CA @ August Hall *
June 2 – Portland, OR @ Wonder Ballroom *
June 3 – Seattle, WA @ The Showbox *
June 6 – Salt Lake City, UT @ Soundwell *
June 8 – Denver, CO @ Bluebird Theatre *
June 14 – Savannah, GA @ Dog Days Festival ^
* supporting Blondshell
^ w/ Mannequin Pussy, Lip Critic, & more