Jenna Raine

Westlake, a talent show and the Septien route

Jenna Raine Simmons was born on 17 February 2004 and grew up in Westlake, a small town on the northern edge of the Dallas–Fort Worth sprawl. The family story has her parents booking voice lessons after she sang Adele's 'Rolling in the Deep' at a third-grade school talent show. She had already started piano in preschool; from the age of ten she trained at Septien Entertainment Group in Dallas, the development programme that had earlier worked with Beyoncé and Selena Gomez.

In early 2015 she joined L2M, a preteen girl group whose first single, 'GIRLZ', came out in mid-January 2016. She stayed roughly four years before going out alone, releasing the solo single 'Us' in October 2018 and two self-released EPs, 'Nen' and 'Be Like You'. None of that is the reason anyone knows her name now, but it explains the technical floor: by the time the internet found her she had been in studios and in front of audiences for the better part of a decade.

Thirty-seven minutes on TikTok

The breakthrough came out of a lockdown exercise. Raine set herself the task of writing a hundred songs, and one of them, 'see you later (ten years)', took thirty-seven minutes. She posted a snippet to TikTok and the response was immediate. The studio version was produced by Nathan Chapman, best known for Taylor Swift's early records, and became her Warner Records debut in September 2021. It went to number one on Spotify's Global and US Viral charts and debuted on Billboard's Adult Top 40; by February 2022 it had passed 36 million Spotify streams on its own.

She chose SB Projects for management, picking the company's president Allison Kaye as her manager — her stated reason was wanting someone she could talk to rather than a bigger name. Her major-label debut EP, 'See You Later', followed on 11 February 2022, carrying a remix featuring JVKE alongside '2%'. Aaron Bay-Schuck, Warner Records' co-chairman, framed the signing around the song offering the sophistication of an established artist with the point of view of an emerging one.

In that same window she was reported to be working on album material with Ryan Tedder, Chapman and Michael Pollack. None of those three appear in the credits of the record that eventually arrived four and a half years later, which is a reasonable shorthand for how long and how indirect the route to a debut album turned out to be.

The long middle

What filled the gap was singles, EPs — including 'Only Started Growing' — and a steady diet of short-form video. 'It Is What It Is' went round TikTok a second time with a dance Raine made with another creator, which is a different kind of hit from a ballad that makes people cry in their cars, and it broadened the audience accordingly. She performed at the MTV VMAs Block Party in 2023.

The streaming total is the clearest measure of what accumulated in those years without an album. Her team was quoting more than 466 million global streams when the tour was announced on 1 June 2026, and more than 480 million by the album release in August. Those are numbers built from a catalogue of loose tracks rather than from one body of work, and the live catalogue reflects it: setlist.fm's play counts across her documented shows put 'see you later (ten years)' at eleven, 'Roses' at ten, 'Who Am I' at eight, and 'Crickets' and 'It Is What It Is' at seven apiece — a set assembled from singles, not sequenced from a record.

'Jeans, Boys & Jesus'

The debut album landed on 14 August 2026 on Warner Records: twelve tracks, produced by Jack Riley, written by Raine with Steph Jones, Jimmy Robbins, Sasha Sloan and Trannie Stevens. The lead single, 'What Would I Say?', had come out on 29 May 2026, co-written with Jason Ingram and Riley, with the album announced three days earlier. Raine described the record as the first twenty-two years of her life in a nutshell, and the very beginning of womanhood; the title, she has said, names the three things she actually is — Texas, the people she loves, and her faith.

Clare Gehlich's review for Melodic Magazine, published on release day, works through it as a narrative rather than a collection. 'Too Late, Too Late' opens on walking away from someone emotionally unavailable. The title track sits on the move from Texas to Los Angeles. 'Guilty As Charged' handles the nervous early stage of something new, with the actor Matt Cornett turning up in the video. 'Used to Pray' is about recognising that the imperfect present life is the one a younger version of her prayed for. 'God Made Him' is the hinge where she decides the relationship is meant, and 'So Far So Good' closes with qualified optimism.

The faith content is explicit rather than coded, which has brought coverage from Christian music outlets alongside the pop press; a September 2026 review on the German site jesus.de reached for Taylor Swift and Olivia Rodrigo as the nearest reference points. The useful thing about the album is that it gave her a shape for a show. There is now a running order with an argument in it.

Where she stands, October 2026

On 16 October 2026 the album was expanded into a seventeen-track deluxe edition, two months after the original. The five additional songs were led by 'I See What You're Saying', released on 25 September and co-written with Jimmy Robbins, Ben Williams and Jack Riley; Raine described it as being about finding your forever and said she was beyond excited to share the next chapter.

That is an unusually fast turnaround for a deluxe, and it is timed to the back half of the touring year rather than to a chart week. As of late September there were twenty-two dates still to play across the United States, Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands, France and the United Kingdom. The practical state of play, then: a first album out two months, an expansion out today, a sold-through club tour in progress, and a European run still ahead of her in November.

The first headline run

The 'Jeans, Boys & Jesus Tour' was announced on 1 June 2026, with presale on 3 June and general sale on 5 June through her own site. It is her first full headline run in the United States: twenty-four cities, opening on 8 September in Houston and closing on 21 October at the Voodoo Room at House of Blues in San Diego. The route is deliberately small-room — City Winery in Pittsburgh on 27 September, the Magic Bag in Ferndale on 29 September, Chop Shop in Chicago on 4 October, Lost Lake Lounge in Denver on 9 October, Holocene in Portland on 13 October, Barboza in Seattle on 14 October, Brick & Mortar in San Francisco on 18 October and The Echo in Los Angeles on 20 October. Support rotates: Ava Liv Mabry, Alyssa Flaherty and Abigail Osborn were named in the June announcement, with Zoe Levert appearing in place of Osborn on later listings.

The European leg follows in November — Antwerp at Kavka Oudaan on 11 November, Amsterdam on 12 November, Paris on 13 November, then the Pink Room at YES in Manchester on 17 November, Òran Mór in Glasgow on 19 November, O2 Institute3 in Birmingham on 21 November and O2 Academy2 Islington in London on 24 November. She is not new to these territories: setlist.fm has her in the Grote Zaal at the Paradiso in Amsterdam on 27 February 2025, at Center Stage's Vinyl room in Atlanta on 14 June 2025 and at the Bowery Ballroom in New York on 10 December 2025, which is roughly the scale she is still playing.