Coco Jones’ Best Songs Ever: “ICU,” “Taste” & More

Since 2012’s “Holla at the DJ,” Coco Jones has steadily evolved into what some might call one of R&B’s most promising stars. She starred in Let It Shine on Disney Channel, delivered a gamut of early hits in her teens and, after what seemed like years of the industry being unsure what to do with her, came back swinging with What I Didn’t Tell You. The seven-track effort gave way to fan favorites such as “Caliber” and “Double Back.” Released on April 25, 2025, her debut album, Why Not More?, proves that she’s clearly just getting started.

As a whole, Jones’ catalog is impressive. She has emotional ballads like the Grammy Award-winning “ICU,” a label debut EP packed with hits, and soulful confessionals like “Just My Luck” — all delivered with unique honey-hued vocals. With that in mind, Rap-Up compiled a list of the entertainer’s best songs in no particular order below.

1. ICU

“ICU” was Jones’ first in a lot of ways — her first No. 1 on the Mainstream R&B/Hip-Hop Airplay chart, first to debut on the Hot 100, and first platinum-certified hit. These successes makes sense, considering the DJ Camper-produced offering finally cemented her as the all-purpose R&B star of her generation.

In its original version, “ICU” finds Jones at her most emotionally open, detailing a love she had to sacrifice for the sake of her career. Despite attempts to “delete every message” and move on with someone different, she just can’t let go. On its remix with Justin Timberlake, though, settling is off the table entirely. It’s a pretty impressive outcome for a song Jones once admitted she was “initially hesitant” to even put out.

2. Just My Luck

Trying to capture the feeling of not being where you want to be in life and not knowing why is no small feat, but Jones isn’t your average artist. On “Just My Luck,” she channels all the uncertainty and “suppressed emotions” she faced after moving to Los Angeles. The nearly four-minute-long offering comes to a climax with her questioning everything down to her own self-worth: “Is my melanin offensive? / Do I talk more than I show? You tell me / Do I meet the standard? Well? / Do I fit in the box? Or am I just too much to handle?”

3. Here We Go (Uh Oh)

Part of what makes the actress so captivating as an artist is her ability to sing about falling in love in countless ways, each time sounding better than the last. With “Here We Go (Uh Oh)” — a contemporary interpolation of Lenny Williams’ “‘Cause I Love You” — the songstress delivers arguably some of her most soulful vocals. The earnest “oh-oh” at the end of nearly every chorus lyric solidifies it as, without a doubt, one of Jones’ most captivating tracks.

4. Double Back

Some of the best R&B tracks of the 2020s borrow heavily from the genre’s earlier — and arguably more soulful — eras, whether through samples or familiar melodies. That’s exactly the case with “Double Back,” which samples SWV’s “Rain.” It’s a little more potent than her earlier singles and doubles as a carefree anthem arguing that it’s perfectly fine to spin the block on your exes — especially if that ex happens to be actor Shawn Wells, her on-screen love interest.

5. Taste

After scoring hits with “Here We Go (Uh Oh)” and the Future-assisted “Most Beautiful Design,” Jones positioned “Taste” from her debut album as the next standout. It’s a more overt, good-girl-gone-bad pivot for the singer — one that fans clearly embraced if its music video’s over 2 million and counting YouTube views are anything to go by. Here, she flips Britney Spears’ “Toxic” into a sexy and confident single that, once again, shows she has ambitions beyond just R&B stardom.

6. Caliber

Much like the title suggests, “Caliber” sees Jones making it clear she wants her partner to step up, and if he’s a CEO, he better be able to “level her up,” too. She sings about it with all her typical soulful delivery, especially after pulling up to the party on her “playgirl s**t.” Overall, the record is a really strong addition to her catalog, so much so that Teyana Taylor was brought on to direct its accompanying visuals.

7. Depressed

Quite contrary to its title, “Depressed” doesn’t sound gloomy at all, especially once you pair it with its music video. Beneath the surface, the track is a sharp commentary about how deceptive social media can be: “Stop pretending life is so amazing and stop flexing for like eight seconds so I can just catch my breath,” she pleads on the outro.

8. Fallin

A gentle comedown that arrived on the deluxe version of What I Didn’t Tell You, “Fallin” explores falling in love, but in a more tender way. Jones features the typical talk of being swept off her feet, but it’s refreshing to hear her ride a beat in a different rhythm than we’re used to.

9. Let ‘em Know

There was plenty riding on “Let ‘em Know,” the South Carolina native’s second release after leaving Disney’s Hollywood Records. However, the singer came ready to show exactly what she was made of. “So, ladies, go hang up your halos / Sometimes you just gotta let ‘em know,” she sang. It was an early indication of the then-17-year-old’s potential and definitely one of her better moments as an independent artist.

10. Call On Christmas

Yes, this is a Christmas song, which makes it all the better — after all, some of Mariah Carey’s most iconic moments happened under the mistletoe. On “Call On Christmas,” pulled from the fittingly named Coco By The Fireplace, Jones wonders aloud if breaking things off before Santa’s big day was really the right call. “Everybody is around me, so I gotta put on / Not trynna hear how my auntie say I need to move on,” she croons while capturing the universal awkwardness of telling your family why last year’s plus-one is suddenly missing from the festivities.

11. Holla at the DJ

“Holla at the DJ” is admittedly a far cry from the Jones we know and love today, but it’s still one of the earliest glimpses of her star power. Released during her Disney run (Let It Shine, followed by a few episodes of “Good Luck Charlie”), the track carries all the bubbly child-star energy synonymous with the early 2010s. “Land in my spaceship, we didn’t come to play / Take over your area, we do this every day,” she sings. While the company notoriously fumbled its chance to transform Jones into the superstar she could’ve easily become — just as it has with other young Black stars — she clearly found her own way to success.