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2025 could be the year of gentle giants in R&B: Summer Walker’s icy “Heart of a Woman” has been inescapable on Black radio, marking her biggest solo hit since her mainstream breakthrough six years ago. Over the past few weeks, British singer Cleo Sol’s airy hymns landed her sold out shows at Radio City Music Hall in New York and Los Angeles’ Hollywood Bowl, hailed as sites of crying and catharsis for her cult fanbase. It seems When… — a new EP by Alex Isley, heir to soul royalty – out today, is just in time for this retreat into sweet abyss.
“I think just where I am and where a lot of the people in my age group, millennials, are, we need as much light and love and softness as we can absorb,” Isley tells Rolling Stone over Zoom. “No matter the age group, I think [we need] those moments where we can really be intentional about breathing, where our feet are, being present and still. I think that’s why we gravitate towards artists and music like that, because it’s essential for us.”
Pleasantly and unsurprisingly, Alex Isley and Cleo Sol are in fact fans of each other, Isley says. Isley was among Sol’s Hollywood Bowl crowd, exalting with the masses. “She’s incredible,” she tells us. “I was really inspired, and you could feel that energy. It was healing, it was joyful. I’ve been a fan of hers for a long time and we’ve corresponded a few times. The mutual love there really means a lot. She’s just such a light.”
Fresh out of what Isley calls “situationships,” her new EP is full of songs that yearn and liberate. She turned her heartache into lullabies and lust into mood music, never raising her voice or overpowering her thoughtful production. Instead, she takes on each track as preciously as the moments of connection and uncertainty they capture.
Isley has been tinkering with the songs on When… since 2022 and says one of her recent songwriting inspirations has been R&B’s OG soft-girl, Sade. “I think part of the brilliance of Sade is the space that she allows for the music, for the songs that we all know and love,” she says. “As far as structure, sometimes it’s just a few phrases repeating, then she’ll say something else, and then she just lets the music breathe. I think that’s where her power is, just allowing everything to flow how it’s supposed to.”
Though Isley calls When… some of her most “direct” and “expressive” music yet, songs like “Ms. Goody Two Shoes” and “Hands” still leave much to the imagination, a cue she takes from her father Ernie Isley’s – of the Isley Brothers’ – era of R&B. “I pick [my dad’s] brain about how he was writing when he wrote a lot of songs from their catalog in the ’70s and ’80s,” she says. “Because I am an old soul musically and that’s the music that I was exposed to the most growing up, I just pulled from that era of subtlety and romance.”
Despite her famous name, Alex Isley’s 13-year-long career has been a slow burn, one she had to learn to arrange, produce, and record herself for. She’s had to take administrative desk jobs, submit auditions, and grind. She’s also been raising another singer: her eight-year-old daughter, Isley-Rose. When… marks her major label debut through Warner Music in partnership with Free Lunch Records.
Like Cleo Sol, many other musicians are Alex Isley fans. Earlier this month, rising singer Isaiah Falls told the Rolling Stone office how anxious he was to meet her, and she’s been a trusted collaborator to jazz geniuses (and Kendrick Lamar sound-shapers) Terrace Martin and Robert Glasper. She earned her first two Grammy nominations in 2023 as the vocalist on Glasper’s “Back to Love.”
Here, Alex unpacks what it means to be breaking through at 37, being called a “nepo baby,” working with Kaytranada, and being one of her favorite singers’ favorite singers.
Your label has called you “Music’s best kept secret” in their marketing material. What do you think of that framing?I think the way that my path has gone is how it was supposed to go. People are continuing to find out about me, and so I love that. I love that idea of being the secret, like, you-got-to-be-in-the-know to know about my music. It all comes back to gratitude for me, and I’m really grateful.
Do you get confronted with the idea that, because you come from a musical family, resources and success should be a given? Yeah. I had addressed the term “nepo baby” [Alex’s initial X posts on the matter from last December have been deleted, but these two remain]. I’ve learned to just let people think what they want to think. I mean, people were coming out of the woodwork like, “Girl, you are a nepo baby!” I’m like, you know what, sure, that’s fine. Okay, cool. But clearly, I think people’s interpretations and definitions are different, and that’s fine. I know my journey, and I know what the beginnings of my path looked like, and I’m still getting started in a lot of ways. But I had to work. I had to work for what I wanted to make happen. I had to get a temp job and figure it out, but I’m grateful for those experiences.
You’ve had a long career. You’re 37 now, in an era where many musicians pop off as kids or younger people. Have you ever felt anxious about where you are in your career and your age?I have my goals and things that I would like to accomplish, of course, but I firmly believe in God’s timing. In a lot of ways, I’m very grateful that I wasn’t exposed to certain things early on. I wasn’t ready. The benchmarks and goals that I’m accomplishing now, I’m ready for those now. I’m ready to be in certain spaces because I have this time and energy under my belt. So yeah, I have my things, and sometimes I get anxious, but I think that’s just a part of my humanity. It’s just a part of being human and wanting to see certain things come to pass, but it just goes back to me trusting God and just always going back to that, that I am going to be where I’m supposed to be when and how I’m supposed to be.
Who has it been gratifying or surprising to learn is a fan of your music?Oh, my gosh. I always get a kick out of this because it’s so cool to meet people that I’m inspired by, and there’ve been a few times where people have approached me first. They’re like, “Are you Alex Isley?” And I’m like, “Oh, my gosh, yes.” Khalid, that happened a few months ago, where he walked up to me and was like, “I love your song ‘Into Orbit.’” He started singing it to me. I just love moments like that. A few months ago, I ran into Kelly Rowland, and she expressed how much she loved my music. That really meant a lot to me. She was one of my biggest inspirations [growing up], so that really meant a lot.
How did you and Kaytranada get together for the track “Mic On”?I just reached out and was like, “Hey, can we do a joint together?” We technically had already worked together on the Robert Glasper Experiment remix album that he did a few years ago. We worked indirectly; I hadn’t met him yet. I just reached out and was like, “Can we please do something?” He was like, “Absolutely.” I know sometimes he’ll play some stuff that he’s already made, and I think he played some stuff for me, and then he was like, “Or do you want me to make something here in the moment?” I was like, “Yeah, I want something here in the moment.” That was one of those sessions that happened really quickly, and we started and finished the joint that day.
He started from square zero, drums first, I think, and just going through sounds. I was just sitting there listening and watching him work. He was just very, very quiet and very focused. After an hour, he turned around and looked at me, and was like, “Do you like this? Do you like where it’s going so far?” And I was like, “Yeah.” And so he turned back around and just kept cooking. In the midst of watching him and listening, that’s what struck up the lyrics and everything.
Before we go, I would love to just know your outlook on this ’s certain things that I know that are happening later in the year, but I think my outlook is – it just comes back to gratitude. I spend a lot more time just in intentional gratitude and just saying, thank you, God, that I am where I am and I’m doing what I love for a living full-time, and I can really fully devote myself to my career. I have a few other roles. Me being a mother has taught me about intentionality and being present. Being as present as I can with [my daughter] is really important because time is a funny thing. I was thinking about that the other day, how it doesn’t feel fast in the moment, but then when you look back you’re like, wow, that was five, six years ago.
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