JeLa doesn’t just write songs, she documents emotional evolution in real time. A storyteller at her core, she turns the mess, magic, and heartbreak of being human into deeply resonant indie-pop confessionals that feel less like singles and more like diary pages set to music. With over half a million monthly listeners and more than 100 released tracks, her catalog is a living archive of healing, reflection, and self-reclamation.
What makes JeLa’s journey especially compelling is that her music career didn’t begin in her teens or early twenties. She built a life first, a medical career, a family, decades of experience and emotional excavation, and only then stepped fully into her artistry. That life lived shows up in every lyric. Her songs explore love and loss, trauma and recovery, connection and self-sabotage, with an honesty that feels both brave and necessary. It’s not just confession, it’s excavation.
Her single, “Oh Honestly,” captures the delicate tension between fear and devotion, the instinct to push love away and the quiet bravery required to let it stay. It’s a song about pattern recognition, emotional growth, and the moment the heart finally catches up to the truth of safety. Like much of JeLa’s work, it’s intimate, cinematic, and deeply human.
We chatted with JeLa to talk about why she chose to pursue music later in life, how therapy reshaped her songwriting, the power of going no-contact with her parents, the emotional arc behind “Oh Honestly,” and why she’s more creatively free now than ever before.
You began pursuing music seriously later in life, after already building a medical career and raising three children. What made you decide, “Now is the time to do this”?
I actually started writing songs back in medical school. My neighbor taught me a few chords on the guitar, and something opened in me. I had no idea what I was doing in terms of structure or theory—I was just writing instinctively, letting lyrics and melody explain things I didn’t have language for yet.
Then I built my medical career, raised three kids, and did all the things you’re “supposed” to do. Music stayed a big part of my life, but I was not creating, just consuming what was out there. At about 36, I started learning piano and taking online classes in music theory, songwriting, and production. I felt the pull again, but this time I wanted to do it with intention.
Once my kids were older and I had more emotional space, I realized there was no reason to wait anymore. Starting later meant I wasn’t creating to prove anything—I was creating because I finally had the courage to show up as myself and share that with the world.
Your music often blends indie-pop vulnerability with big emotional storytelling. How would you describe the “JeLa sound” to someone hearing you for the first time?
The JeLa sound is emotional storytelling wrapped in indie-pop. It’s soft vocals, warm textures, cinematic production, and lyrics that feel like someone finally saying the thing you’ve always felt.
A lot of that comes from years of therapy and learning how to be vulnerable, how to be curious about my emotions instead of afraid of them. That curiosity is the heartbeat of my songwriting.
If you’ve ever tried to love someone while carrying your past with you, you’ll hear yourself in it.
You write from intensely personal experiences—trauma, healing, love, and survival. What does your songwriting process look like when the topic is emotionally heavy?
When something is emotionally heavy, I don’t feel like I have the option notto write about it. It’s how I process life. I keep a notes section on my phone that’s filled with lines and ideas that hit me at random times—3 a.m. thoughts, things I overhear, emotions that need somewhere to land. I also have a document called my “hit list,” which is where I store themes, concepts, and titles I know I’ll explore eventually.
When I sit down to write, I usually start at the piano or with a voice memo. I let myself be messy first, without censoring. The truth comes out instinctively. Later, I shape it into something melodic and intentional. Songwriting is where honesty comes before refinement.
You’ve mentioned being fascinated by the human experience. What questions about humanity are you still trying to answer through your music?
My fascination with the human experience started in therapy. I spent ten years working with a very special therapist who truly saved my life. He taught me to be curious about my emotions, my patterns, my reactions—to understand the stories underneath instead of running from them.
So the questions I explore in my music come directly from that work:
Why do we repeat patterns that hurt us?
How do we learn to trust love when we weren’t raised in safety?
How much of our adult lives are shaped by childhood wounds?
And what does emotional freedom actually feel like in the body?
My music is an extension of that curiosity.
You went no contact with your parents two years ago after a lifetime of emotional abuse. How has that decision shaped your music, your voice, and your personal safety?
Going no contact was one of the most terrifying things I’ve ever done. I grew up with an emotionally abusive mother and an enabling father, and in that kind of dynamic, a “family cult” mentality forms—where the abuse continues but no one is allowed to name it. My mother controlled our family’s narrative so intensely that she convinced me my life would fall apart if I disobeyed her. She told me I’d be unloved and alone.
And the truth is… I believed her. Even though I had a loving husband, three incredible children, and a real support system, that early programming ran deeper than logic.
It took years of therapy and an enormous amount of courage to finally choose myself. The day I went no contact, my entire body was shaking. My nervous system had been taught to fear her for so long that even though I knew cognitively I was safe, my body still believed I was in danger.
A huge part of my healing has been allowing my somatic experience—the body—to catch up with the cognitive truths my mind now knows. Teaching my system what safety actually feels like.
And that work completely transformed my music. My voice got clearer. My writing became more honest. When you remove the people who trained you to shrink, you finally have room to expand.
What have long-term love, motherhood, and years of personal growth taught you that your younger self could never have imagined?
That love isn’t something you earn through perfection. It’s something you receive through presence, honesty, and connection.
My younger self believed any mistake would cost her love. Motherhood and long-term partnership taught me the opposite—that real love is spacious. It grows with you. It forgives you.
And personal growth taught me that healing isn’t about becoming someone new. It’s about returning to the version of yourself that existed before survival mode took over.
“Oh Honestly” captures the complexity of self-sabotage and the bravery of staying in a relationship. When did you first realize this was a story you needed to tell?
I wrote “Oh Honestly” when I caught myself falling into an old pattern—pushing someone away just to see if they’d stay. It was a reflex born from a childhood where love disappeared the moment I wasn’t perfect.
When I saw myself doing it again, even in a safe and loving relationship, I knew it was something I needed to unpack. Writing the song helped me confront that instinct instead of repeating it.
What part of the writing or recording process for “Oh Honestly” felt the most cathartic for you?
For me, the catharsis started with the lyrics. I always begin with words—something true to my life, something that’s already living inside me. And “honestly” is a word I say often in therapy. I think it’s my way of signaling, “This is really me. This is the part I’m scared to admit out loud.” That’s how the title was born. It wasn’t a concept—I was just telling the truth.
When I wrote the first chorus—“Oh honestly, you shoulda cursed me out… why did you stick around?”—it felt like I was finally naming a pattern I had lived with for years: testing love, expecting abandonment, bracing for impact. Singing it out loud was both humbling and liberating.
But the most cathartic moment actually came later, when I rewrote the final chorus. I changed the lyrics to reflect what staying, healing, and letting someone love me actually did to me. That shift—from fear to recognition, from sabotage to growth—is the emotional arc of the whole song. And putting that evolution into the structure of the music felt incredibly healing.
That’s also why I added a key change at the final chorus. It was a way of sonically signaling transformation—like the ground rising underneath me. The earlier chorus lives in fear: “Get out while you can.” The final chorus lives in truth: “Honestly, you pulled me out… you got to me right when I hit the edge.”
It mirrors my own healing: the body catching up to the mind, the heart catching up to the understanding that someone stayed.
Recording that final chorus was the moment everything clicked. It felt like closing the loop on a version of myself I’m not living in anymore.
Your career is a powerful example of reinvention in midlife. What do you hope people—especially women—take from your journey?
That it’s never too late to choose yourself. Reinvention isn’t about starting over—it’s about finally prioritizing the parts of yourself you ignored for too long.
Women, especially, are conditioned to put everyone else first. I hope my journey shows that stepping into your own life—fully, unapologetically—is possible at any age.
Is there a myth about age, artistry, or starting over that you’re especially determined to dismantle?
The myth that creativity belongs to the young. It doesn’t. If anything, life experience makes you a more interesting artist. You have more depth, more perspective, more stories to tell.
Artistry doesn’t expire. If anything, it gets richer.
With so many chapters behind you, what excites you most about the chapter you’re in now?
What excites me most is the freedom. Starting this journey later in life means I don’t have to pretend or perform for anyone. I’m creating from a place of authenticity, not approval.
A life fully lived taught me that being my true self—while scary—is the only way to really connect. With the people I love, and with the people who will listen to my music.
This chapter feels like the first one where I’m completely unmasked. Just me. And that kind of honesty is thrilling.
If listeners take one message from the world you’re building as JeLa, what do you hope it is?
You’re not too late. You’re not too broken. You’re not too much.
Your story can still become something beautiful. You deserve to take up space exactly as you are.
What’s next for JeLa?
I’m in a big creative wave right now. I have a chain of singles coming—a real waterfall of music—each one revealing a different corner of who I am. More visuals, more storytelling, more truth.
This next season is about expansion—emotionally, creatively, and sonically. And I am so excited for all of it.
Connect with JeLa: INSTAGRAM
