Coco Jones went from Disney Channel to Def Jam, and found her voice on the way

Coco Jones recorded her first songs when she was just 11 years old, an entirely DIY project, burned onto a CD with help from her mom.

“Corny sounds, corny vibes, corny subject matter,” Jones recalled. “But that was my life at the time.”

It’s an adjective that couldn’t be more inaccurate when describing her current musical identity. Jones, now 25, has been in the spotlight since her preteen years — most notably starring in the Disney Channel musical “Let It Shine” at age 14 — but has come into her own as one of the most vocally gifted talents leading the charge into a new era of R&B.

“What I Didn’t Tell You,” her High Standardz / Def Jam debut, narrates a love story gone wrong, stemming from a smitten admirer who eventually betrays her trust to the point of no return. “ICU,” the EP’s runaway hit, landed her first spot on the Billboard Hot 100 along with an eventual remix courtesy of Justin Timberlake.

“It’s so funny to me, because I grew up singing songs like ‘ICU,’” she said. “I used to audition to songs from Aretha Franklin, CeCe Winans, Whitney Houston, Mariah Carey. My mom chose the most challenging songs for me as a kid because she wanted me to be able to sing anything.”

Jones was born in South Carolina and raised in Lebanon, Tenn., to a family well-versed in show business — her father the former NFL player Mike Jones, and her mother a session vocalist. Music was just one of many passions in the beginning.

“I didn’t know what would be my way to college,” she said. “I figured I’d play a sport to get in and figure out what I want to do from there. But doors just opened, that led to me taking [entertaining] seriously at a young age. I turned my hobby into a career at 10 years old.”

Jones auditioned for roles in Nashville, and landed on several episodes of Disney Channel’s “So Random!” beginning in 2011 before notching her lead role in “Let It Shine” alongside “Abbott Elementary” actor Tyler James Williams. But despite the promising start, fully realizing her dreams proved to be a laborious process; she says rampant colorism played a role in her losing out on desired roles, and Jones was often passed over in auditions for other young entertainers singing the same songs as her.

“I remember being a young girl, and young Black girls would be floored by me,” Jones remembered. “I didn’t understand because I was just doing what I enjoyed. But to see me, looking like them, I think was blowing their minds. And then my mind was blown too, so we all were shook.”

(Jason Armond / Los Angeles Times)

Jones signed a deal with Disney-owned Hollywood Records in 2012, and would release a wide-eyed, club-pumping EP titled “Made Of” that same year. But the label dropped her in 2014, forcing Jones to chart a new path once again.

“When I was in my younger, child-star phase, I would sing everything the way I’d been taught, which felt natural, and I was always told to dumb it down,” Jones recalled. “But now at Def Jam, they’ve never told me to put any version of myself on a smaller scale. I’ve never heard anyone, since I became a grown adult, tell me to sing less.”

In August, Jones embarked on her first tour since she was a young child — “my mom wasn’t around to protect me this time,” she laughed. The tour, which included a date at L.A.’s Fonda Theatre, not only allowed her to connect with her fans in person for the first time, but reoriented her approach toward music as she crafts her follow-up.

“Those sold-out shows really motivated me,” Jones said, “When I made the EP, I just wanted to captivate people, because not enough people knew me. Now, I want to make songs with being onstage in mind.”

“[Coco] is still evolving and developing in the industry,” said NyAsia Burris, R&B lead, artist partnerships, at Spotify. “But from her performance onstage, you can see she’s a natural star. That’s been there since her Disney days.”

Now on a break from tour before the second stretch kicks off in October, Jones has the Grammys — and a best new artist nomination — in her sights. The golden gramophone has been on her mental vision board since the beginning — so much so that she already has an image of herself in the winners circle, with not just one trophy in hand.

“That photo of Beyoncé, where she’s holding several Grammys — I put my face on there,” she said with a smile. “And then I zoomed in on a Grammy, and wrote Coco Jones.”