JoJo spills the tea and the tears in a documentary on her career and what the hell happened after "Too Little Too late"

Miss Americana. I'm really happy for you. But JoJo also has a documentary out on YouTube, in collaboration with Honda and Uproxx. Random, I know. But if it means a bitch gets a 45 minute documentary, then whatever. They best have given JoJo a free Honda whip to roll around in too.

Honda Backstage with JoJo runs through a timeline of her career from the very beginning right up until her Grammy win with PJ Morton. But the weight of the documentary is on what happened to her right after the release of her second album The High Road, where JoJo was unexplainably absent from radio and the charts for years, which seemed odd at the time given the massive success of "Leave (Get Out)" and its follow up "Too Little, Too Late". And from a fan perspective, The High Road was such a damn good album that we just wanted more regardless of what sales metrics were dictating JoJo's 'hiatus'.

In the midst of her absence JoJo did eventually lift the lid via interviews and on social media as to why all was quiet on the music front, so fans know the story by now and that her contract with Blackground records is what threw her entire career into Valhalla. But this marks the first time that JoJo has walked everybody through the situation on camera. And even though I knew what had happened, watching this documentary highlights that it was worse than what I'd known, as JoJo touches on details here that she hadn't done so before - and that there was more that was crushing her dreams and her spirit than just a shitty contract, although that was most certainly the catalyst for everything that began to happen to and around her.

Given that JoJo's first two albums were released when she didn't have any say creatively, and she's since been open about not being so mad about Mad Love; her 4th studio album Good To Know will be the first studio album that JoJo has done on her own terms. Here's to hoping that a bitch gon' give us that mixtape energy. Because Can't Take That Away From Me, Agape and #LoveJo (as short as it was) were all brilliant.

JoJo doesn't sound too thrilled about her debut and barely speaks on The High Road, but her debut had some great songs (even JoJo acknowledges that "Leave (Get Out)" is why she's still here) and The High Road was a damn good album that got fucked over by Blackground already falling apart by the time it got released. "Anything" still managed to get airplay and love from fans and R&B heads alike despite not being pushed and "Coming For You" was the hit single that never was.

I could go on and on about what shoulda and coulda been, and how JoJo deserved to have a level of success that the likes of Ariana Grande is currently enjoying. But I'm glad that JoJo is still even here, with a world tour and an album on the way, when in an alternate timeline she easily couldn't have been.

I wasn't thrilled with Mad Love and actually think it's one of her weakest releases amongst her studio albums and mixtapes. It'd be interesting to hear a bit more on how that album became what it was, because it wasn't the most commercial album and Atlantic picked odd songs for singles when they had "Honest", "Mad Love" and "Good Love" (a dead cert for a UK hit) all sitting right there.

So let's see what Good To Know has in store for us.

☕ She ready: JoJo announces her new album and tour Good To Know
📝 Reviews: Can't Take That Away From Me | #LoveJo
💿 Special edition: The In-between: An album of unreleased material
🔙 Flashback: Leave (Get out)