As the Toronto singer prepares to drop her debut album, she wants us to stop living with regret.

“Nobody makes it out of love alive.”

That’s been Jessie Reyez’s refrain throughout a spate of recent interviews about her debut album, BEFORE LOVE CAME TO KILL US. It’s the idea that love either fizzles out before its time or, if it lasts forever, still has an end date because someone has to die first. It’s a grim sentiment on its face, and one that Reyez has embedded in her project’s DNA.

Throughout the album, she often describes the feeling of infatuation in morbid terms, mixing in visceral imagery of blood, guts, and violence on songs like album-opener “DO YOU LOVE HER”:

If I could blow your brains out, sorry I could guarantee that you’ll forget her

If I blow your brains out, I could kiss it better

Kiss me I’m the monster that you made

Yeah you made me

“I don’t know how to love with restraint,” says the 28-year-old artist in a February interview at Genius’ Brooklyn headquarters. “Love has always been headfirst. And when you go headfirst, you risk breaking your neck.”

Despite the album’s dark take on romance, Reyez insists she’s not a cynic about love. Indeed, these lyrics come from a deeply personal place and an overarching worldview about the power love has over us all. “It’s funny, eh?” she muses. “Because the idea that it’s going to die is what makes me more enthusiastic about being present and appreciating [love] while it’s in front of me.”

Reyez’s debut album (out this Friday, March 27) is years in the making, and it’s a reflection of the complicated portrait she’s painted as an emerging star. The singer grew up in Toronto, the child of working-class Colombian immigrants. After dabbling in songwriting as a kid, she connected with the music industry through The Remix Project, a program that provides underprivileged youth with training in creative disciplines. Through Remix, she found mentors who helped hone her skills.

Following her breakout 2016 single, “FIGURES,” she’s carved a lane for herself with a unique brand of highly confessional R&B and alternative pop music. One early moment that showcased this tenacity was “Gatekeeper,” a track Reyez wrote about a music industry figure (later revealed to be producer Detail) who tried to take advantage of her in the studio.

“I wasn’t so much scared for myself,” she says, when reflecting on her decision to record the track. “I was more scared for my family because I didn’t know how deep revenge would go from me releasing that song.”

She’s continued to address hot-button issues in her songs, like on 2018’s “Body Count,” when she questioned the gendered double standards around promiscuity with some help from Kehlani and Normani. These tracks have positioned her as a feminist voice in the industry and earned her a loyal following. Although she hasn’t notched a Billboard Hot 100 hit as a lead artist, singles like “FIGURES” and “IMPORTED” have gone Gold thanks to long-tail streaming numbers.

Reyez’s boldness has also earned the attention of some major industry names. She nabbed writing credits on Calvin Harris smashes like “One Kiss” and “Promises,” and held down hook duty on Eminem’s Kamikaze in 2018 after “Gatekeeper” caught his attention.

“My personal opinion, I think she’s really gonna blow up,” Eminem told Sway Calloway in 2018. “I don’t feel like she does pop music. She comes from a real place and she writes her own sh*t.” Em returned the favor with a feature on “COFFIN.”

I don’t feel like she does pop music. She comes from a real place.

— Eminem

Now, with BEFORE LOVE CAME TO KILL US, Reyez wants to show the world the full range of who she is. The record builds on her past work, tackling heavy issues like toxic relationships and struggling to reconcile her religious views. On her single, “ANKLES,” she lays bare the dark dichotomy of an unhealthy romance:

Fight just to f*ck, just to fight again

World War III justified in bed

Mess me up, now we ain’t even friends

But the truth is I’m kind of tired of

Pretending that I was the guilty one

“With that kind of intensity, that kind of deep love, there comes blood and injury,” she said about the album’s darker moments. Although morbid, they read less as a warning against love than a pondering of the inevitable when two people’s lives and emotions intertwine. Despite the confessional nature of her music, however, Reyez said she still struggles to open up in real life.

“It’s so much easier in music, because it’s just how I breathe,” she explains. “It’s the privilege of being able to finish a sentence without being interrupted.”

While her answers are typically stream-of-consciousness emotional outpouring, her songwriting refines these tendencies down to something much more self-reflective. Even amid the sadness, there’s moments of hope, like on “LOVE IN THE DARK”:

But when our lives are running out

And your heartbeat has taken the draw

Could you try to look around?

I’ll be there to pull you back up

I’ll be around you, I’m nothing without you

I won’t leave you alone

‘Cause when the stars are falling down

There’s love in the dark

In many ways, having her fans discover her secrets and emotions through music is a cathartic experience.

“The moment that I hear the f*cking room of 6,000, 7,000 people singing my secrets like they were their own, I hear their emotion,” she recalls with exuberance. “The fact that we share these burdens together are what make my life, my childhood dreams, possible. It’s happiness.”

With that kind of intensity, that kind of deep love, there comes blood and injury.

— Jessie Reyez

Religion is also a frequent theme on the album, stemming from Reyez’s upbringing by Catholic, Colombian parents. “There’s certain songs, for example, ‘Kill Us’ or ‘Love in the Dark,’ where I can’t help but think of the afterlife,” she explains. “And if I didn’t have faith, [then] my idea of love, my idea of reuniting with spirits that I’ve lost might be more bleak than what they are.”

She describes her relationship with her parents as helping her form these views. “I was really fortunate to have open dialogue with my parents about it. Particularly my dad because my mom is so spiritual and so faithful that it was difficult for me to have that black and white conversation,” she said. “I’d be like, ‘Mary couldn’t have been a virgin. Mary could have just been a liar.’ Some people don’t like to hear that.”

One thing she remains skeptical of, however, is the business side of music.

“There’s a lot of things about the music industry I wasn’t ready for. I’m still learning how to maneuver,” she says, with a sigh. “I don’t like promo days. I don’t like the politics involved with a lot of the bullsh*t. And it’s hard to articulate that without sounding ungrateful. I battle with that guilt.”

For Reyez, keeping herself centered as a songwriter helps combat the commercialization of her material.

“A part of music has been tainted. Like where music used to be my home, my refuge, there’s a fraction of music that’s been killed because money kills art,” she continues. “There’s things like artwork, touring, and release dates and all this sh*t that I can’t protect. [But] the song is still sacred. Because no matter politics, no matter what release dates, no matter what. I don’t ever have that in my mind when I’m writing. It’s just heart, to mouth, to pen.”

There’s things like artwork, touring, and release dates that I can’t protect. [But] the song is still sacred.

— Jessie Reyez

It’s been years of work leading up to her debut album, but the Toronto singer is just getting started. She rattles off a list of goals and a hefty five-year plan, including starting an orphanage, taking career cues from Adele and Frank Ocean, and leaving behind impactful work that creates “a little ripple that turns into a tsunami.” It’s a fitting sentiment for an album she originally planned to title You Could Die Tomorrow. Reflecting on the cruel shortness of human life, Reyez urges everyone not to live with regrets.

“We have such a sh*tty misconception of time. Live for yourself,” she implores. “Don’t live for other people’s opinions because you have to sleep with yourself at night. Nobody else. You’re born alone. You die alone. So make sure you’re good with your decisions.”

She might not make it out of love alive, but Jessie Reyez is determined to make it out of life with a legacy to be proud of.