Jamaican Reggae Singer Jah9 Has a Self-Care Philosophy We Can Get Behind

The first thing Jah9 said to me after I told her I had around eight questions to ask her was, “You should make it nine.”

“Oh yeah,” I laughed, feeling a bit dense as the irony dawned on me. “I didn’t even think of that!”

As a longtime fan, I should’ve anticipated that Jah9 would think of that. The 36-year-old Jamaican reggae singer—who was born Janine Elizabeth Cunningham, but goes by her childhood nickname and sometimes even just “Nine”—is all about honoring her identity and the path she has carved for herself. She’s known not just for her music but for her fierce inner strength and her relentless dedication to wellness and advocacy work and yoga, particularly her unique “Yoga on Dub” classes, in which she blends her own slow-tempo dub music with asana poses, meditation, and reasonings (the Rastafari term for discussions about life). She’s even taken her “Yoga on Dub” classes on tour, teaching and performing for audiences of up to 5,000 people in Brooklyn, France, Canada, and more.

Now, Jah9 is leaning into her vision of self-care more than ever before. Her third album, Note to Self, which comes out today, is an entire ode to personal growth and the important and tireless work of, well, doing the work. Filled with songs like “Feel Good ‘The Pinch,’” where she sings about her love of movement (“love it when the muscles start burn / love it when the body starts learn how to bend”), and the title track, “Note to Self,” about the power of positive affirmations (“I’m gonna be okay, I tell myself while I’m breathing”), the album is a welcome addition to the world of wellness wisdom.

She and I talked on the phone about the deeper self-care philosophies that embody and drive her work—and her hope that her message reaches those who need it most.

The importance of “self-study”

Jah9 believes that the deepest form of self-care is “self-study,” or the art of doing the soul work. In other words, it’s about looking deep within yourself in an effort to truly understand yourself and your motivations.

“To me, self-care starts with honesty and love to myself on all levels,” she tells me. “I grew up pretty sickly, with a lot of asmathic and bronchial issues, so I’ve always paid a lot of attention to what is happening in my body. And self-care for me is listening to what is happening and reacting to it, as opposed to having a cognitive dissonance where I feel one way and act another.” To stay in tune with her body as much as possible, Jah9 keeps a journal—a practice she’s upheld diligently since she was a young girl—and recommends doing the same if you're someone who finds it hard to focus on yourself without actively doing something, like journaling, that forces you to look inward. “Write down your goals, write down your feelings, write down your budget, whatever it is that you want to keep track of, document it. That way, you can observe yourself through time and get to see who you are beyond what you think you are—and then you can be really honest with yourself and make real changes.”

Women in particular have a hard time making space for self-study, she continues, when we’ve been told for so many years that we have to put this and that before ourselves. But we both agree that that deeply ingrained cultural belief has got to go. “I want more women to tap into the science of understanding what happens to your body every single month and how you are a moon in and of yourself. You rise, you wax, you grow, you shrink, you empty—there are so many things to study about yourself. And once you start peeling away the layers, you can get to the core of, ‘Who am I, and why am I here?’”

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