From releasing her first album to amassing nearly 500,000 monthly listeners on Spotify and getting signed to Capitol Records, the past year has brought a whirlwind of change to freshman popular music major Natalie Jinju’s life.

Although she said she dreamed of being a pop star since she was a little girl, Jinju said she didn’t plan on finding success so soon. Because of her parents’ encouragement, she decided to release and promote her music during her senior year of high school, not expecting much to result from it.

“In all honesty, I released the album so that I could get into [Thornton School of Music],” Jinju said. “I was like, ‘They’re not gonna take me seriously if I don’t have music out.’ So I released the album, and it actually ended up doing well, to my shock and surprise.”

The album, “Last September,” caught the attention of numerous record labels; after various calls, Jinju signed to Capitol Records earlier this Spring. Under Capitol, she’s released two singles, the most recent being “buttons,” which was released Oct. 22. She said that she wrote the song on her phone during a summer road trip with her boyfriend.

“Sometimes when you’re with someone for a long time, they start to annoy you just a little bit, even if you love the heck out of them,” Jinju said about the inspiration behind the song.

Many of Jinju’s songs, like “buttons,” are products of her life events, thoughts and interactions. She said songwriting began as a way for her to cope with her emotions and explore her identity authentically.

“At first, it was just really a way to express myself, and I didn’t even think about the lyrics that much. They would just spill out of me,” Jinju said. “I like to write songs about random things too, or just stories, but that came later. … I’m not trying to be performative with my lyrics.”

Songwriting and singing brought Jinju to Thornton’s pop performance program, where she has collaborated with fellow pop performance freshmen: “Buttons” was recorded live at Paramount Studios, with a band composed of Jinju’s pop performance peers.

“She made sure that everyone was always on the same page with her songs, because we’re dealing with her original work,” said Isabella Both, a freshman majoring in pop music performance and a vocalist on “buttons.” “It’s different from when you’re learning a popular pop song that everybody knows; this is her work, which can be very sacred to a person or very important to them that it’s done correctly. But at no point was it stressful.”

Jinju also said the experience of working with peers was positive.

“It’s really interesting to see what other people are able to come up with in different genres. And it’s really inspiring whenever you’re in class and someone’s voice is just absolutely amazing, or their song is bringing me to tears,” Jinju said. “It’s awesome to be around people who are really passionate about the same things that I am.”

Working in both the studio and classroom environments has allowed Jinju and her peers, such as Jacob Egan, a freshman majoring in pop performance, to become familiar with each other’s professional habits and strategies to working as an artist while simultaneously being a student.

“Every single day she’s working on [something],” said Egan, who played keys for “buttons.” “From what I hear, she’s just constantly emailing and working on something for the future and planning stuff out, posting, in addition to doing all of our stuff for class, which is quite a bit. She’s definitely very on top of things.”

A big part of Jinju’s work has been promoting herself and building a personal brand to build an audience of listeners. She posts frequently on platforms like Instagram and TikTok with videos that promote her music in clever ways, like telling viewers that this is their chance to become an original fan, or branding songs as “Natalie Jinju core.”

“You have to have your kind of vibe. People really like to be a part of something that they feel like they discovered … so I played into that a little bit when I first started out,” Jinju said. “I also played the cards of, ‘If you like this artist, you might like me.’ I think that helped a lot, too. Those were the posts that started to do really well.”

Jinju said Norah Jones, Carole King, Laufey and beabadoobee are some of her inspirations as an artist, but she emphasized the importance of the lyrics and stories coming from herself.

“The most important thing was that [my music] was authentic,” Jinju said. “People don’t like to have something that’s like an industry plant. I guess people want to see that you’re doing it.”

Jinju said being true to yourself and not fearing outside judgment is key to those trying to get a start in the music industry.

“There’s some songs on the album that I wish I never released because I just don’t like them, but they have a million streams, and people love the song, so it’s like, you just have to keep going and be consistent and not give up. You have to avoid self-judgment,” Jinju said.