Dario T
Audio By Carbonatix
You may not have heard of Grammy Award-winning vocalist BriJolie, but you’ve heard her voice through your headphones and you’ve seen her perform.
Over the summer, the Fort Worth native, who resides in Los Angeles, returned to North Texas to sing the National Anthem before the Dallas Wings faced the Atlanta Dream. Her performance at the College Park Center in Arlington was just the beginning of her journey as a solo artist after conquering the music industry through singing in choirs, collaborations and background voice work for the likes of Beyoncè, Snoh Aalegra, IDK, Maeta, SZA and more.
BriJolie wants to go full speed ahead on stepping from behind the scenes to the spotlight. She’s currently working on her solo album that will drop at the top of 2026, and we can look forward to seeing all sides of her personality, judging by the name of the project. “This next project is called Mixed Personalities. It’s really just a cultivation of everything that makes me BriJolie,” she told us last September.
Whether you’re looking to dance or sing your heart out, the project has a hit for you. “You’re going to have the dance records on there. We’re going to have the ballads. We’re going to have some pop stuff,” she said.
In her early years, Jolie attended Calvary Christian Academy in Fort Worth and later moved to Arkansas to experience an HBCU. After receiving her bachelor’s degree in mass communications from the University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff, she played with the idea of being in radio and public relations, but realized that career path was not where the money is. “Right before I left college, I was a radio intern and I was like, ‘this is what I’m gonna do, radio is gonna be the life,’ BriJolie said. “And then I started applying [to jobs], and I also just realized you don’t make a lot of money in radio. So I was like, ‘OK, next card.’”
When she worked at Enterprise, a rental car company, she said it was ”the worst job she’s ever had.” A friend offered her an opportunity to sing with an a cappella group at Disneyland, giving her a jumpstart back into the music industry and a glimmer of hope to stay in the business.
“He was like, I heard you sing. I’m like, ‘OK, this opportunity sounds great. I would love to.’ So I started with them, and that’s how I got back into singing. I was doing this gig at Disneyland. It was a holiday gig, so it was temporary. We were doing it throughout the week and on the weekends,” she explained.
During the Disneyland gig, Bri’s mother passed away in November 2018, which motivated her to quit her job at Enterprise without a plan. All she wanted to do next was pursue avenues that made her happy. In January 2019, she received a call from another friend, Tiffany Cross, that led to an opportunity of a lifetime. “She was like ‘there’s an A-list artist and he is getting singers together and it’s gonna be like a choir thing [and] it’s gonna be this Sunday and it’s at his house.’ I’m like, OK, cool and didn’t know who it was, right? So, I show up to rehearsal, I find out it’s Kanye West,” she said.
BriJolie was one of the original members of the Sunday Service Choir and sang on two of his albums, 2019’s Jesus Is King and Jesus Is Born. “It started off with like 50 people and we were just doing it every Sunday, and it continued on for like three to four years. The Sunday Service movement. So that allowed me to travel all around the world,” she remembers.
Being a part of Ye’s Sunday Service Choir reminded her that she’s a church kid whose southern roots still run deep. Those teachings led her to something familiar and near and dear to her heart. “[I was] singing in church choirs as a kid [and] doing things that I grew up doing, singing in a choir and singing just inspirational music and being able to be on two of his albums,” she said. “It just opened up the door for so many other things, and I’m grateful to have so many people who speak my name in rooms even when I’m not there; they speak my name and give me the opportunity to be a part of these amazing projects.”
“Between Disney and Kanye, [they] kind of launched off the whole career of me working with so many amazing artists and having so many amazing opportunities,” she added.
In 2025, BriJolie became more front-facing with her musical talents. She received three Grammy awards, one for Best R&B Performance as a background vocalist for Muni Long’s “Made For Me” (Live on BET) performance and the other two as a credited vocalist on Beyoncé’s Cowboy Carter album, which won Best Country Album and Album of the Year.
Even if the role is small, the impact is huge and has changed the trajectory of her life.
“I’m just super grateful and honored that I have been able to be a part of just a small role in two of her latest projects and winning a Grammy for something so incredible as Cowboy Carter. I’m just floored. I still have no words. I’m just humbled and I’m thankful that God allowed me to have that opportunity,” she said.
Lee Gumbs
Similar to her previous opportunities, Jolie had no idea she was making history in those studio sessions with Beyoncé. True BeyHive members know how she gets down, but the project was years in the making. “You know, even in the early stages of recording Cowboy Carter, I didn’t know that it was Cowboy Carter. I was just showing up to studio sessions and didn’t hear any music, didn’t hear anything, just singing vocals that were being fed to a few of my friends who are also in the industry. I think we recorded those vocals in like 2021, and Cowboy Carter came out in 2024,” she explains of the process.
As for her involvement behind Muni Long’s viral hit and performance, it is all due to trusting her team’s judgment, as well as following through with small additions to perfect the performance. She tells us how one edit changed everything. “It was one idea that kind of changed the whole sound of the ‘Made For Me’ live performance, and it elevated the performance so crazy. I heard it back in the studio and we were like, ‘Oh, snap. OK.’ That was like a crazy lift that happened.”
She continued, “The next day, there’s one part of a clip that we added that wasn’t even originally part of the arrangement and it took off the next day. That one part of the clip went viral and led to a Grammy nomination.” Although it was a shock at first to receive a nomination, listening to her team’s recommendation led to a Grammy win.
She admits there’s no handbook for creating good music. It’s just whatever feels good to you, because there’s going to be somebody who is going to rock with what you’re putting out. I don’t care if it’s ten people or ten million,” she said.
Those experiences have led her to more drops in introducing BriJolie, the solo artist. “You know, it’s just an amazing thing to be a part of [Cowboy Carter]. I think it just lit a fire under me, too, as a solo artist to know that nothing is out of reach, and you know greatness takes time at any level,” she said.
In April, she released “Keep Dancin” to start off the next project on a high note. “On Mixed Personalities, it will be like a beautiful masterpiece of so many things. And I’m so glad that I put out ‘Keep Dancin’ as an Afro pop record because I think that a lot of people will be like, ‘OK, well, she’s an R&B artist, you gotta stay in that lane.’ And it’s like, no, you can really create whatever you want,” she said.
Jolie’s very strict Christian upbringing kept her away from having the freedom to listen to secular ’90s hits. Jolie had a full circle moment in her career with a chance to work with Kirk Franklin. “You know, I’m a church kid, so that was like a huge part of my childhood, but also just seeing him now, seeing the impact that he’s made on the music industry, not just the gospel industry, but the music industry.” she said, adding watching “giants in the industry” like Franklin and Erykah Badu constantly push the envelope and have pride in their respective cities is inspiring.
Once Mixed Personalities releases next year, she’s about to be a force in music. We can look forward to seeing all her personalities take center stage.
