While the visual sees her embrace a sensual, sophisticated pop alter-ego, when I speak to the musician at home in the week before it’s release, it’s the other Jessie Ware on the line. She’s the personable, self-effacing figure who has become a podcasting phenomenon thanks to Table Manners, the chart-topping food show she co-hosts with her mom. “I had my veneer redone this morning, and I feel like I’m speaking like the Grinch,” she says. “It’s not sexy, by the way, I didn’t get new fabulous teeth—my sister knocked them out when I was seven.”
As for how she switches between Ware the pop diva, and Ware the affable podcaster? “Perhaps it confuses people which one is my main job, but I still think music is my main job,” she says. Still, “it’s great to have a space away from making the music, so you appreciate it and enjoy doing it even more—there’s less pressure, therefore, you can be more creative.”
Photo: Ella Lucia
That tracks: It was around the time that Ware’s podcast took off that her music career also enjoyed a well-deserved resurgence, thanks to the slinky, after-dark disco and house of 2020’s What’s Your Pleasure?, followed by the glittering, Motown-inflected soul and funk of 2023’s That! Feels Good!
Now, she’s set to return later this year with another (yet to be formally announced) album, which she’s previously suggested may be the third in a trilogy of Jessie Ware dance records. Given the sound has come to feel like her natural habitat, would she truly consider making a radical genre pivot next time around? “I feel like I cocked up saying it’s a trilogy, because maybe they’ll just keep on threading together,” she laughs. “I think that’s what will probably happen. I don’t think I’m going to go off and make a rock album or a folk album any time soon. If I’m enjoying myself and people are enjoying listening to it, I’m going to stay put in this world. But I feel like these [albums] do make sense altogether as a three-parter.”
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Photo: Ella Lucia