sarah hersom

BJRNCK’s story begins long before the first note of her debut album. A Girl Like Me is the book she spent a decade trying to write. “This project took ten years,” she says, her voice calm but certain. “It is my first real body of work, my story, and all of me.” The album represents a turning point for the Chicago-born singer, who spent much of her early career elevating her craft and finding her sound. After many exciting collaborations with other artists, BJRNCK stresses the importance of trusting your creative instincts as she debuts her first album.

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In the early stages of her career, BJRNCK often found herself in rooms where every creative decision required a collective nod of approval. “When you are signed, everyone has to be happy with the music,” she recalls. “This time was about trusting myself.” That self-trust became the heartbeat of A Girl Like Me, an album that is a personal project made with intention. “I wanted people to see every side of who I am,” she says, before adding what has become her true purpose: “I want people to hear these songs and recognize themselves in them.”

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A Girl Like Me is a well-diverse album, with some songs tapping into softness and longing and others speaking from confidence and female power, but all carrying a distinctive, smooth early-2000s feel inspired by her favorite artists. Her influences from Brandy, Mariah Carey, and Chris Brown are clear but never overwhelming. “Everything repeats itself,” she says. “The new generation doesn't even know Mariah’s first album. I bring those elements back, but in my own way. My music goes back to the foundation of R&B.” That foundation carries through her own favorites on the album, “Say Yes” and “Good 4 Me.” “I am such an R&B girl,” she says, smiling. “Those songs feel like the nineties again. They are moody, soulful, and they remind me how it feels to fall in love.”

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