Genia - Jaded

What this video is

Released April 14, 2023 via Def Jam Recordings, 'Jaded' arrives during a pivotal moment in the TikTok-to-major-label pipeline era of R&B. Genia, a 21-year-old from Victorville, CA — a high-desert Inland Empire city rarely represented in mainstream R&B — represents a wave of artists who built audiences organically online before signing to legacy labels. Her decision to self-direct her videos in black and white, at…

Why it matters

As an early-career Def Jam R&B single from 2023, 'Jaded' represents the contemporary neo-soul / alternative R&B continuum. Its monochrome self-directed video situates it within a lineage of visually minimal, emotionally maximal Black music video traditions — from 1990s soul to the introspective…

The director

Genia is a singer, songwriter, rapper, and self-directed visual artist from Victorville, CA, signed to Def Jam Recordings. She broke through via TikTok in 2020 and subsequently refined her artistry under producer Jaycen Joshua. Her early visual output —…