Today we’d like to introduce you to Dalona Jones.
Hi Dalona, we’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
I was born in Nashville, but grew up in Grand Rapids, Michigan in a family where music wasn’t a hobby, it was the air we breathed. My mother is a gifted Gospel vocalist, and church wasn’t just Sunday mornings for us. It was four, five days a week, every week, for as long as I can remember.
I was maybe seven years old when my late grandfather, a career minister and Bishop of our church, heard me in the kitchen singing a praise and worship song I’d picked up earlier that day. The look on his face stopped me. He was genuinely lit up, like a talent scout who had just discovered the next big thing, except it was his own granddaughter. That moment changed everything. From that point on, my family, especially my mother, saw something in me and made sure I used it. I was singing in church so regularly that sometimes they’d pull out a stool so the congregation in the back pews could actually see me. Even when my voice and hands were both shaking, I showed up. That little girl on the stool is honestly still who I’m singing for.
Growing up, I battled a lot of self-doubt about whether music was a “realistic” path. I gave myself permission in pieces, slowly, over years. I took the practical roads, earned my degrees, built a professional career. But music never left me alone.
I came back to Nashville in 2019, not with a five-year plan, but with something quieter than that. I’d left before I was old enough to really remember living here. A part of me wanted to come back and close that chapter, or maybe finally start it. Nashville is a music city, obviously, but it is deeply a country music city. Finding space as an independent R&B and soul artist here takes real intention. But this city has also given me a stage, community, a career, and honestly the discipline to build something that is fully mine.
Today I’m balancing more than most people know. I perform and release music as DALONA, an R&B and soul artist rooted in gospel but shaped by everything I’ve lived since. I teach graduate-level courses at a university. I work full time in education technology. And earlier this year I launched Jones26 Advisory LLC, a consulting practice I founded to support nonprofits and social impact organizations with partnership strategy, program development, and data. I named it after myself and the year I finally stopped waiting for someone to give me permission to be in the room.
None of these things feel separate to me. The same rigor I bring to program strategy, I bring to a song. The same vulnerability I ask my graduate students to lean into, I try to put into every performance. I’m not someone who compartmentalizes easily. I’m all of it, all the time.
The journey hasn’t been linear and it hasn’t been easy. I’ve had to unlearn the idea that pursuing music was something I’d have to apologize for. I’m still working on that, honestly. But I have two EPs out, a new single that just released for Juneteenth, a co-headlining show concept in the works, and a lot more on the way. The little girl on the stool would be proud. I’m making sure of it.
I’m sure it wasn’t obstacle-free, but would you say the journey has been fairly smooth so far?
Smooth? No. Worthwhile? Absolutely.
The most honest thing I can say about being an independent R&B artist in Nashville is that it requires you to fight for your visibility and fight for fair pay in a city that wasn’t necessarily built with your genre in mind. Nashville has so much to offer creatively, and I’ve had genuinely beautiful collaborative experiences here. But it can also be a town where relationships and access feel concentrated in certain circles, and if you’re not already inside those circles, you have to be really grounded in who you are and what you bring so you don’t start questioning yourself. I’ve had to learn to stay anchored in my own lane while still being open to community. That balance takes practice.
Stage fright has been another real one. I come from a church background where I was performing early and often, but that doesn’t make nerves disappear. If anything, the stakes felt higher as I got older and the performances got more intentional. The thing that has genuinely helped is just doing it. Regularly. Consistently. Getting on stage even when I didn’t feel ready. The stage fright hasn’t gone away entirely but it has gotten smaller the more I’ve refused to let it make decisions for me.
The deeper struggle, the one that took the longest to name, was giving myself permission. And I mean that in a real way, not a motivational quote way. I had to grieve a version of success I thought I was supposed to want. The predictable trajectory. The stable, linear path. The version of the American Dream that looked good on paper but didn’t actually have room for what I knew I was called to do. There were moments in Nashville, more than one, where that safer road looked really attractive. A 9-to-5 with a clear ceiling felt like relief compared to the uncertainty of building something creative from scratch.
But I kept coming back to the same truth. I’m a creative. That is not a hobby or a side note, it is fundamental to who I am. And choosing not to follow that purpose wouldn’t just be a loss for me. It would be shortchanging everything I have to offer. I couldn’t live with that. So I stayed in it, and I kept building, and I made peace with the fact that my version of success was always going to look a little different from what I was taught to want. That peace has been the most important thing I’ve found on this road.
Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
At my core I’m a singer, songwriter, and vocal producer. That combination matters to me because it means I’m not just the voice in the room, I’m involved in shaping the sound itself. I care deeply about how a song is constructed, how harmonies are layered, how a vocal arrangement makes someone feel something before they’ve even processed the words. That’s where I live creatively.
One of the things I love most is when artists in my creative community call me into the studio to help elevate a demo, co-write, contribute a vocal arrangement, or just make something better than it was before I walked in. I’ve started calling myself a studio hit-woman and I mean that in the best possible way. There’s something really satisfying about being the person other artists trust to come in and sharpen the thing they’re already building. It tells me that my ear and my instincts have value beyond my own projects.
My music is rooted in gospel, the tradition I grew up in, but it’s shaped by everything I’ve experienced since. It sits somewhere between the emotional depth of Jazmine Sullivan and the soul and intentionality of Erykah Badu. It’s R&B that has memory in it. I have two EPs out and a new single called “Feel Good” dropping on June 19th for Juneteenth. Everything I put out is an attempt to make music that feels honest and specific rather than chasing whatever the moment calls for.
Beyond the music, I teach at the graduate level and I recently launched Jones26 Advisory LLC, a consulting practice I founded to work with nonprofits and social impact organizations on partnership strategy, program development, and data. The throughline across all of it is the same: I want to build things that are rigorous and humane at the same time. Whether that’s a song or a program, I want whatever I touch to actually mean something to the people on the receiving end.
What am I most proud of? Honestly, my willingness to try things before I feel ready. That’s not nothing. A lot of people wait for the right moment and it never comes. I’ve learned to move toward the thing that scares me a little.
A few moments stand out as proof of that. In January 2025 I hosted my first ever release party for my EP Love and Delusion. Packed house. I had never done anything like that before and I didn’t know what to expect, but people showed up and it was one of those nights where you realize the community you’ve been building is actually there. That moment felt like a real turning point. Then in May 2026 I performed solo at the National Museum of African American Music’s inaugural First Note Showcase. Standing on that stage, in that building, as part of something that had never been done before, doing it alone with nothing but my voice and my presence, that meant everything. And attending the Grammy Awards in both 2025 and 2026 has been its own kind of fuel. Being in those rooms, seeing what’s possible at the highest level of this industry, it doesn’t make you smaller. It makes you more serious about what you’re building.
What sets me apart is harder to answer without sounding like I’m writing a resume. But I think it comes down to this: I approach everything I do, music, teaching, consulting, the same way. With real intention, real research, and a willingness to be vulnerable about what I don’t know yet. I’m not trying to be everything to everyone. I’m trying to be exactly who I am, fully, in every room I walk into. That specificity is rare. And I think people feel it when they hear the music or when they’re in a room with me.
What are your plans for the future?
There is a lot in motion and I mean that in the best way.
On the music side, the most significant thing I’m working toward is my debut album. I’m in the early conceptual stages and I’ll say this much: it’s the most personal thing I’ve ever attempted. Everything I’ve released so far has been building toward it in some way, the EPs, the singles, the collaborations. The album is where all of those threads come together into something that really tells the whole story. It’s rooted in where I come from, the gospel foundation, the faith, the questions that came after the faith, and it’s being shaped by everything I’ve learned about who I am as a writer and a vocalist since moving to Nashville. I’m not rushing it. I want it to be right.
In the shorter term I’m focused on reaching new listeners. Specifically people who love intentional vocals, people who want to hear music that actually sees them. That’s always been what I’m after when I write and I want more people to find their way to it. That means expanding beyond the markets and rooms I’ve already been in, pursuing more genre-bending collaborations, and getting my music placed in film, television, and other sync opportunities. I think my sound travels well and I want to find out how far.
I’m also focused on building the team around DALONA. Right now I’m doing a lot independently and I’m proud of what that has produced, but I know the next chapter requires the right people around me. Management, booking, the whole infrastructure. I’m being intentional about who I bring in because I want people who understand the vision, not just the logistics.
For Jones26, I’m focused on establishing a strong client base in the nonprofit and social impact space, growing the practice with the same intentionality I bring to my music, and continuing to position it as a resource for organizations that are doing meaningful work but need stronger infrastructure around their partnerships and programs. The goal is for Jones26 to be recognized as a trusted name in that space, not just a service but a genuine thought partner for the organizations I work with.
The common thread across all of it is purpose. I’m not chasing the next thing. I’m building something that lasts, on every front, and I’m genuinely excited about where it’s going.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://dalonasings.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/duhlahnuh/
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@DALONASINGS
- Other: https://jones26advisory.com
