Get to know Janani!

Janani K. Jha is accustomed to breaking barriers. After graduating with academic honors from Harvard College and earning acceptance to Harvard Law School at the age of twenty, Janani (formerly known as J. Maya) decided to defer her legal ambitions to pursue her lifelong pipe dream: music. With millions of followers and listeners across different platforms, she has transformed this dream into reality.

Driven by a deep love of wordplay, she used to compete as a teenager on the international pun circuit, where contestants create puns within five seconds on themes introduced on the spot. Crowned as the world championships’ MVP at the age of seventeen, she became the youngest pun championships award-winner in history.

Her fascination with language manifests in her music. In 2021, Janani (pronounced jenna-knee) published a demo of a Greek mythology-inspired pop song, “Achilles Heel,” online, where it generated millions of views. Upon its release as her debut single, Janani began writing more literature-infused music in earnest and sharing it with her audience of millions. Janani’s 2022 single “Sunday Crossword” went viral for its crossword-inspired concept; content surrounding the song was viewed over ten million times across social media platforms. She followed these songs with a string of viral singles — “Library Card,” an indie rock song about growing up with her head in a book; “Golden Age,” about the underrepresented women of mythology, literature, and history; “Machine Learning,” an indie pop record about her lifelong experiences with social anxiety; “Prophecies,” a love letter to her parents for the sacrifices they made as first-generation Indian immigrants; “Slow Burn,” a romantic ballad that has become a popular first dance song; and “The Maze,” an alternative rock song inspired by the mythological journey of the Minotaur. In 2024, she was cast in the role of Aphrodite in EPIC: The Musical, a viral musical retelling of Homer’s Odyssey. The album she contributed her vocals to accrued over twenty million streams in its first week and charted at #1 on iTunes, #1 on Billboard Soundtracks, #9 on Spotify’s Top Songs: Debut Global, and #75 on the Billboard 200. In 2023, Janani began a relationship with the Harvard Classics department as a guest lecturer, speaking to students about interpretations of classical mythology in contemporary music; in the same year, she was invited to speak about her experiences as an Indian-American female songwriter and producer on ABC7 News and KTLA.

Janani been praised for her “whip-smart” “hit[s]” and named as one of the freshest voices in music by media institutions like VOGUE, Forbes, MTV, NME, and the Recording Academy. Her debut EP, Poetic License, a literature-themed concept project, arrived in 2022 to critical praise and over ten million streams on Spotify, and her 2024 single “Gladiators” sparked viral buzz for its music video, a dystopian short film co-directed and written by Janani.

With her debut album set to release in 2024 and planned ventures in film and theater, Janani is just getting started.