Collection: Smooth Jas
Smooth Jas is the musical moniker of 26-year-old Long Beach native Jasmine Navarro (they/them). The project began in late 2018, when Navarro started writing and recording songs on GarageBand with their ukulele. Their songs have since transformed to include a variety of synths, electric guitars, drums, and bass, creating dream-like tunes that explore love, queer identity, and life as a 20-something in the 21st century. Smooth Jas performs both solo and with a live band.
Their 2019 single YCTQ was featured in Junior High Magazine x XGIRL’s 2020 Isolation issue and community-led Long Beach web publication lblojo.org. The song was also used in the Rock n’ Roll Camp for Girls Los Angeles’ 2020 Music Video Program.
‘Smooth Jas’, their eponymous debut EP, was released November 5th, 2021. A first glimpse into Navarro’s capabilities beyond the confines of GarageBand bedroom-pop beats, the project is a lockdown-era time capsule, curated over the course of two years spent in a tumultuous relationship. The result is a 22-minute-long listening experience that watches Navarro come of age, both musically and metaphorically. Opening with YCTQ, a psychedelic lament on codependency, and closing with the somber and introspective Cass Dy, ‘Smooth Jas’ settles into a feeling every person has experienced in their early 20s: being blanketed still by the naïveté of youth while also increasingly unable to ignore the jarring realities of adulthood.