It’s fitting that as I go to write about jazz vocalist Indys Blu, thunder roars outside of The Bean Gallery on North Carrollton Avenue. Like a rainy day in New Orleans, Indys Blu’s sound is soulful, classic, gloomy, romantic and could easily be the muse for a painting.
The 22-year-old music artist, born as Sydni Osborne, pivoted from creating R&B to jazz music this year. Raised by a painter father, she remembers him listening to an eclectic range of artists while working in the studio, like Blossom Dearie, Alanis Morissette, Kate Nash, Ingrid Michaelson and Colbie Caillat.
Her openness to various genres of music and art led her to become the jazz-singing, ukulele and guitar-playing creative she is today.
“If I don’t get creative, I get bored,” Osborne said. “I’m constantly doing stuff to color my soul.”
If you couldn’t tell by her artist name, Indys Blu’s favorite color is blue. She has a blue room, a guitar and occasionally dyes her dog blue. Her bold-hued hairstyles, gauged earlobes, face piercings and tattoos are a stark contrast from her soft, breathy and songbird-like voice.
She released her latest album, “Same Conversations,” in 2022, a seven-track collection of songs themed around breakups, having the same conversations with your romantic partner and feeling stuck in a loop.
Since then, she has released an emotional single each year, peering into the ups and downs of her love life. In her 2025 song “Saddest Song,” she sings about ending a relationship with someone after their actions didn’t match their words. She felt empty after the breakup and all she had left to show for their time together was the “saddest song,” she tells me during our interview. When asked if singing about her exes and painful experiences from the past ever brings her down, she says no.
“Once I write a song, I kind of lose the feeling, because the writing process is my outlet,” Osborne said. “I’m channeling the energy of everybody in the crowd that has experienced it or gone through it, so that I can sing for them.”
As she prepares for her first album release in three years, she is challenging herself to write songs based on fictional scenarios and not just personal experiences. Since her last album, she says she has gotten closer to her authentic sound instead of singing what she thinks people want to hear or what is trendy.
“I do find having a soft, slow pace of music within my generation is a little bit hard because rap, R&B, and bounce are the main music that is advertised in New Orleans club settings and videos,” Osborne said. “I’ve been sticking to what’s real to me and have been finding my people along the way.”
