Georgia-born singer/songwriter Jonah Kagen crafts yearning, heartfelt material grounded in acoustic folk yet marked by a pronounced pop sensibility. A self-released track titled “Broken” spread rapidly across social platforms, securing him a contract with Arista, which issued the song officially as a single during 2021. Building on that momentum, he issued additional well-received folk-pop numbers, among them the Matoma collaboration “Summer Feeling,” and he also put out two EPs: Georgia Got Colder in 2022 and The Roads in 2024.
Raised in Savannah, Kagen picked up the guitar at age six; exposure to footage of Andy McKee later steered him toward fingerstyle technique. While enrolled at Cornell, he cultivated a sizable following online, particularly through TikTok. The poignant indie folk piece “Broken” achieved viral status there, leading Arista Records to sign him in 2021. Once the label gave “Broken” its formal release, Kagen spent the ensuing year expanding his output via tracks such as “Moon” and the anthemic “Summer Feeling,” a joint effort with Norwegian producer Matoma. Both “Broken” and “Barcelona” anchored his debut EP, Georgia Got Colder, which appeared at the close of 2022. Across 2023 he continued adding singles, including the Lily Meola collaboration “Made Up My Mind” and the folky “The Roads,” whose title supplied the name of his subsequent EP that December.
