Bio - On the surface, Jarki Monno was living out his dreams. A young kid from Hemel Hempstead making serious waves in music, his 2024 EP ‘Mother Told Me ‘These Things Happen’’ was a breakout moment - his live shows were packed, and the rising force was picked to play BBC Radio 1’s Big Weekend. Underneath it all, however, he was struggling; using the studio as a space to explore his feelings, Jarki Monno has emerged emboldened and renewed with an incredible new EP and refined sense of purpose.

“It was a year to remember, that’s for sure!” he says, looking back on his rise. Picked out as BBC Radio 1 Introducing’s Track of The Week, playing shows across the UK – and even the continent – he even made his debut TV performance on BBC One News to an audience of millions. As his career accelerated, however, Jarki became unable to process powerful feelings of loss – losing two father figures in quick succession, he found himself sinking. “I started to feel like some kind of a bad omen; that trouble just followed me around,” he says. “I threw a rug over that area of my life. It was difficult to revisit.”

Reconvening with close friends in the studio, he began to open up. Producer FJ Law returned, and the connection with him was “pivotal” for what would follow. Spinning his creativity around, Jarki Monno began to hone in on his emotions for the first time, allowing himself space to breathe. “My last EP looked out at the world, but this is more introspective – it’s me discussing what I’ve been through over the past two years. It’s been a rollercoaster, but it’s all played a part in this project.”

“I finally feel comfortable in myself,” he adds. “I’ve never been happier with my writing. It’s cathartic, it’s like therapy. I’m comfortable now in telling my story, and it seems like it resonates with people. Writing it felt like a real journey. For me, it’s about accepting what I went through and being able to come out of the other side.”

The new EP dares to look at his journey to date. A kid from Hemel Hempstead who wanted something different from his life, music took him to Brighton as a student, making friends with a host of different people. Inspired by his surroundings his lacking self-belief, returning to the confines of his teenage bedroom sparked a sense of resolution – he needed to get out. A perpetual dreamer, he wrote down his ambitions on a whiteboard in his room, and then watched as each one came true. “Things come as and when they’re ready for you,” he reflects. “I remember singing in the kitchen, using a salt shaker for a microphone, dreaming I was at Big Weekend… and then it all happened!”

Music is his source of escape, but it’s also a place where he can be finally utterly true to himself. Jarki Monno is able to take those thoughts and feelings and transform them into something universal. “We’re all one and the same, in some shape or form,” he notes.

“I want to be able to help people with my music,” he says. “I want to be unapologetically myself and never change on that front. Music is what keeps me going, and it helps me navigate through my life.”

Meeting fans after his breathless, electrifying shows, Jarki Monno has come to learn the true value of his music and the connection it creates. With his new EP ready to go, he’s reached a place of truth and communion. “I’ve learned a lot about myself through making this project,” he closes. “We’re never 100% - but if we keep working at yourself, you can get close.”

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Jarki Monno on Spotify.