Editor's Note: Mon Rovîa, whose debut LP Bloodline came out January 9 via Nettwerk, is No Depression's Spotlight Artist for January 2025. Check out an original poem-essay he wrote here and an exclusive video of a previously-unreleased song here.
Mon Rovîa likes to work in sets. His previous four EPs — Act 1: The Wandering and Act 2: Trials from 2023, Act 3: The Dying of Self from 2024, and Act 4: Atonement from 2025 — all stand alone as separate works, but were intended to be understood as a wider narrative. So it’s no wonder his full-length debut, Bloodline, is a 16-song concept record of sorts, which traces his harrowing journey from Liberia to the US and explores themes of immigration, survivor’s guilt, war, peace, and acceptance.
“I feel really good about it,” Mon Rovîa begins, calling from his home in Chattanooga, Tennessee before the holidays. “You work hard for something over time — a couple years for me, at least — and … it doesn't seem real. You listen to these songs over and over again and you really anticipate giving it to the people to hear.”
Born Janjay Lowe in Monrovia, Liberia, the up-and-coming star honored his hometown by stylizing it as a stage name. At about seven years old, during the height of Liberia’s Second Civil War, American missionaries adopted him so that he could escape the life of a child soldier. As he gained refugee status, Mon Rovîa spent time growing up Florida, Montana, Tennessee, and the Bahamas. It wasn’t until living in Knoxville that he got a ukulele and was exposed to anything other than religious music. Bloodline, released January 9, is the culmination of nearly 10 years of listening to, learning about, and playing and writing music. It’s the result of both thoughtful intentionality and auspicious spontaneity.
Through-Line
Since his first EP in 2020, Sunburnt and follow up in 2021, Dark Continent, Mon Rovîa has taken a much more precise approach to songwriting and navigating the complicated nature of a changing industry.
