Key Takeaways
- JoJo partnered with Seeker Music, which acquired her original recordings and re-recordings of JoJo and The High Road, giving her greater creative control over the albums that launched her career.
- After signing away rights to her voice as a minor and spending years unable to profit from her early music, JoJo re-recorded both albums through her Clover Music imprint and released them in 2018.
- JoJo called the deal “full-circle,” while teasing a 20th-anniversary vinyl edition of The High Road ahead of her unplugged anniversary tour.
A two-decade-long headache for JoJo is finally over.
On Friday, Oct. 23, Seeker Music announced that it had acquired JoJo’s first two albums JoJo and The High Road, both of which brought her into fame as a teenager. These albums spawned hits like “Leave (Get Out)” and “Too Little, Too Late,” which are still some of JoJo’s most memorable tracks.
JoJo and The High Road were released through Blackground Records in 2004 and 2006, respectively. But when the label became largely inactive around 2012, JoJo — whose real name is Joanna Levesque — wasn’t released from her contract, as she had signed the rights to her voice away as a minor. For years, she was unable to commercially release new music, so she released mixtapes and freestyles onto the internet for free. One memorable example was her freestyle of Drake’s “Marvins Room,” called “Can’t Do Better.”
JoJo was later able to get out of the contract and signed to Atlantic Records in 2014. In 2017, she launched her own imprint Clover Music, through which she re-recorded her first two albums, creating new master recordings. She released the new versions of her albums on streaming services in 2018, years before Taylor Swift would follow suit with her Taylor’s Version series.
When Blackground relaunched as Blackground 2.0 back in 2021, JoJo’s first two albums were finally made available on streaming. While fans rejoiced, JoJo reminded them that only streams of her re-recordings would support her.
Now, it looks like her beloved catalog is in good hands, as the partnership with Seeker brings the original and re-recorded versions of her first two albums together under one roof.
“Deciding who to trust with such a personal and important part of my catalog wasn’t something I took lightly,” said JoJo in a statement to Music Business Worldwide. “So, when discussions started about Seeker acquiring the original recordings of JoJo and The High Road, my interest was piqued. Over time it was heartening to learn more about their ethos and see how involved and passionate [Seeker Music leader] Evan [Bogart] is – someone who truly understands artists because he is a creator himself. I appreciate the care they’ve taken in understanding what this music means to me and to my fans. It feels full-circle to have both versions of these albums together with a team committed to finding new ways to amplify it.”
Fans can soon look forward to a 20th anniversary edition of The High Road pressed on vinyl. Following the announcement, JoJo teased the celebratory iteration of her sophomore album on Instagram. “Y’all… it sounds SOOOOO good,” she wrote. “I’ve never heard it quite like this before.”
JoJo released her EP NGL in 2025 via Clover Music. She will embark on her The High Road Tour: 20 Years Unplugged on Friday, Nov. 13, kicking things off at Royale in Boston.
