Zora Jones: “Without Vulnerability, There Is No True Connection” [Q&A]

Zora Jones does not see the dance floor as an escape. For her, it is where difficult feelings are dragged into the open, shared and made physical. On her second album, 50 Bullets To The Heart, the Barcelona-based producer turns five years of pain, growth and hard-won self-belief into her most exposed work yet. 

Arriving September 30, the record pushes Jones’ own voice to the foreground for the first time, threading Miami bass, grime, crunk and early-2000s R&B through the intricate world-building that has long shaped her music. Its first two singles reveal different sides of that shift. “50 Bullets” flips heartbreak into defiance; “ULTRAFREAK” reclaims femininity, desire and control firmly on Jones’ terms. 

Coming after ANGEL CRISIS, her club-charged first solo project in five years, the album reaches somewhere more personal and vulnerable. Ahead of its release, Jones speaks to Beatportal about fantasy, writing for her own voice, refusing to make herself smaller, and preparing to open her heart in front of a crowd.

This album has been five years in the making, and it feels like it captures a huge period of change in your life. Looking back now, what do you hear when you listen to 50 Bullets To The Heart?

I think that without change, there is no growth. They go hand in hand, and growth often comes with a lot of big feelings – pleasure, or in my case, a lot of pain. Over the last two years, I’ve lost my fear of pain and difficult emotions because the darkest events in my life also brought me the greatest amount of joy.

That’s what I hear when I listen to the album now: myself trying to make sense of a very difficult period, processing different experiences through writing and producing music, and finding my way back to who I am. I feel so much joy when I listen to it because I’m incredibly proud of the work, of everything I’ve learned and of how resilient I am.

Rather than offering escapism, 50 Bullets To The Heart presents the dance floor as a space to confront grief, desire, vulnerability and pain. What drew you to exploring those emotions on the record?

The dance floor is often described as a place of escape, but I actually feel like it’s the opposite. When I’m in the club, I see people connecting with one another, feeling deeply and expressing themselves freely. For me, the club has always been more about community and emotion than escape.

Speaking specifically about my music, I’ve learned to allow myself to feel very, very deeply, and my music is a manifestation of that. I even talk about it on “Diamond Body,” which I wrote a few years ago as a letter to myself. It reminded me that my feelings weren’t something to fear, especially the overwhelming ones. At the end of the day, they’re just messages that need to be heard, not avoided.

You’ve collaborated with some incredible vocalists over the years, but this feels like the first time you’ve truly stepped into the spotlight yourself. Was there a moment when you realized your own voice needed to become the emotional center of the project?

Yes, and there were a few reasons for it. One was confidence. If you’re repeatedly told that you’re not good at something, you start to believe it. I needed to free myself from the idea that I wasn’t good at writing before I could fully dive into it.

I also love writing with and for other people, but the stories I’m telling on this album are very personal. I had to perform them myself.

Your production draws on everything from Miami bass and grime to crunk and Timbaland-era R&B, yet the record feels cohesive rather than referential. How did you bring those influences together while still shaping something unmistakably your own?

You absolutely nailed the influences, which makes me so happy! And thank you – I’m glad it sounds cohesive. Maybe that comes from the way I approach music as a student. If I like an artist or genre, I try to learn as much as I can about it: its history, its originators, the drum machines they use, who inspired them, who their favorite songwriters are and even what they read in their spare time.

I’m not interested in listening to music on a superficial level. When it comes to production, I think I’m drawing from a deeper understanding of my influences rather than simply referencing their ideas.

Fantasy has always been part of your work, but on 50 Bullets To The Heart, it feels inseparable from the record’s emotional world. What does fantasy allow you to express that realism doesn’t?

Someone once told me, “Sometimes the fantasy is better than what we’d actually experience.” Maybe that’s where I escape reality a little and allow myself the pleasure of dreaming.

I’m sure you know the feeling of having a crush or a favorite artist who, in your head, is the greatest person ever to walk the earth. Then you finally meet them, and they’re a total disappointment. Sometimes it’s nicer to stay in the fantasy or indulge in it to get through a difficult moment.

I did that on “Summer Baddies.” I wrote it during a period when I had such severe back pain that I couldn’t walk for seven months. I imagined myself with my girls in a drop-top, enjoying the summer and living pain-free. More broadly, I think our experience of life is shaped more by perception than reality itself.

There’s a real sense of ownership over your body and voice throughout “ULTRAFREAK.” How important was it for this record to explore desire from your own perspective?

I love that you said “ownership over your body” because, until last year, I hadn’t felt like I had that for a very long time. I was made to feel that if I embraced my femininity as an artist, I wouldn’t be taken seriously. Looking back, I realize that message was never about protecting me – it was about limiting me. There’s power in femininity, and that’s exactly why so many people try to control it.

Reclaiming that part of myself has been incredibly liberating. The song was written in 2023, and in hindsight, it feels like I was already trying to regain that sense of ownership. The visual evolved in the same way. The video was originally only going to feature the CGI character, but last year I decided to include footage of myself because, for the first time in a long time, I had the confidence and freedom to do it.

Your productions are incredibly dynamic, constantly shifting in pace, texture and intensity. How do you build that movement without losing a track’s emotional thread?

Thank you! I try to put myself in the listener’s position and avoid making music that’s self-indulgent. There’s nothing worse than someone noodling around for ages to show off their technical skills without considering how people will actually experience the song.

For me, making and performing music is a lot like sex and physical intimacy. It has to be mutual and bring pleasure to everyone involved. You can’t be selfish.

The visual language of your work has always been as considered as the music itself. At what stage do those two worlds begin to meet? Do you see the visuals while making music, or does that identity emerge afterward?

Speaking purely about my own project, the music comes first 99 percent of the time, followed by the visuals. The themes or sounds within a song usually give me an idea of how I want to represent it visually.

After living with these songs privately for so long, how does it feel knowing they’re about to belong to other people? Has that changed how you’re thinking about performing them live?

It feels very overwhelming because it’s such a vulnerable album. It basically feels like I’m unzipping my heart and letting you all poke around inside it. But that’s exactly what I was looking for. Without vulnerability, there is no true connection, and music is so much about connecting with others and with yourself.

Taking the album live will be another level because I’ll be in the same room as people while they experience the music on a big system, which often amplifies everything. The energy a crowd gives you when you perform can make you feel like you’re on some kind of high.

What’s special about the live set is that I’ll perform different versions of these songs that will only ever exist live. I’ll also revisit older tracks that I’ve written lyrics for so that they fit within the context of the new music.

This album feels like the closing of one chapter as much as the beginning of another. When people finally hear 50 Bullets To The Heart from start to finish, what do you hope stays with them?

It certainly feels like a new chapter because I think it is. In a way, it feels like my debut album.

I hope it makes people feel strongly, whatever those feelings might be – joy, sadness, warmth or even disgust. If you feel something big while listening to my music, then I’ve done my job right.

Zora Jones' album 50 Bullets To The Heart drops September 30 via Bellyfat.

Get it on Beatport.