Jae Stephens shares ‘Sugar Trap’ video, debut album out Sep 25th & Khalid tour
Bubbling pop singer / songwriter, Jae Stephens turns flirtation into an empowering art form on new video, ‘Sugar Trap’ out now via Def Jam Recordings / RAEDIO. Watch HERE, ahead of her debut album AUDACITY (out September 25th).
‘Sugar Trap’ delivers Jae’s effortlessly playful yet razor-sharp perspective on women empowerment while capturing her magnetic, wielding wit and femininity with a wink and a smile. The Dallas Caton produced track layers heavy bass and bouncy percussion to amplify the candy-coated hooks and cheeky innuendos – asserting Jae as a woman who knows what she wants and won’t minimize her standards. Throughout the video, Jae transforms a dive bar into her own playground, surrounded by an all-female crew and her JaeBaes as the night’s guests. Channeling the unapologetic energy of pop culture film classic Coyote Ugly, Jae serves drinks, commands the room, and dances her way through a visual built around one rule – desire is easy, but earning her is another story.
‘Sugar Trap’ is the latest bold statement from Jae’s forthcoming debut album AUDACITY, cementing her as one of pop’s most compelling new and fearless voices. AUDACITY’s exploration of womanhood bridges the gap between the various forms of female duality from softness and strength, vulnerability and command, to intimacy and independence while weaving together Jae’s ideologies of feminine sovereignty. Co-produced by Dallas Caton and with writing support from MNEK (Zara Larsson, Beyonce, Dua Lipa), the 11-track album unfolds within Jae’s fantastical immersive world Auda City – a place she and Creative Director Cass Meyers (SZA, Megan Thee Stallion) created to allow women’s unapologetic convictions to transform feminine power into a destination all its own. Accented by Jae’s new age blend of pop and R&B, each song on the album becomes an expression of Jae’s bold limitless worldview, starting with the kick-off single ‘Attaboy!’ (where she tames a self-proclaimed bad boy into the perfect plus one).
With the album already tipped by the likes of Teen VOGUE, Nylon and VIBE, AUDACITY follows Jae Stephen’s acclaimed SELLOUT EP project (SELLOUT, SELLOUT II, TOTAL SELLOUT), which featured viral standouts ‘‘Afterbody’ and ‘Boyfriend Forever’. The series was accompanied by her The Sellout Podcast with Jae Stephens, where she interviewed fellow unapologetic innovators in their own lane like MNEK, hemlocke springs and floweroflove. Across the SELLOUT projects, Stephens’ music has been widely praised by fans and critics alike: she’s graced the cover of NME, been noted by Rolling Stone her as one of the voices in The Pop-Girl Guide To Dating, was highlighted in GQ her as a standout act in Pop Counternarratives, and was awarded Popheads’ 2025 Best New Artist Award on Reddit.
Jae Stephens recently graced the stage at Lollapalooza in Chicago and received love and rave reviews from Fader,Time Out Chicago, and Chicago Sun Times – who headlined their review with “Jae Stephens Deserves a Larger Stage”. She is also set to head out on tour with Grammy-nominated pop / R&B singer Khalid on the European leg of his “It’s Always Summer Somewhere” this October. With a bevy of new music on the horizon, Jae is building a world entirely on her own terms with no signs of slowing down while taking fans along for a wild ride.
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