Review: Jasmine Ellis - Trash Baby

Trash Baby is Jas­mine Ellis’s debut album, but I’m putting it out there that more albums are in her future. If I meet some­one with a vision board, I have the utmost of con­fi­dence in assert­ing that this won’t be her only album. And let me tell you, Jas­mine’s vision board is top-notch. I got to know Ellis when she did her first Com­e­dy Wham Presents inter­view in 2017. She returned in 2019 because she’d accom­plished great things over the span of 2 years and she was primed to announce the release of her debut album. 

Trash Baby is mas­ter­ful in its approach and high­lights skills that new fans of Ellis may not real­ize she pos­sess­es. It’s nec­es­sary to lis­ten to an album sev­er­al times when writ­ing a review and the bonus to doing that is laugh­ing again at things that grabbed your atten­tion on the first lis­ten, while also dis­cov­er­ing things you missed. 

For exam­ple, with Ellis’ rapid-fire deliv­ery, you may miss the onslaught of sub­tle roasts that are per­va­sive through the album. As a hard­core fan, I know that Ellis is a mas­ter at the roast — she com­petes hand­i­ly in roast shows includ­ing the Com­e­dy Cen­tral Roast tour­ing show that swung through the 2019 Moon­tow­er Com­e­dy Fes­ti­val. And if you lis­ten care­ful­ly to her album, once, twice or as many times as nec­es­sary, you catch roasts through­out. My all-time favorite on this album is of her then-fiancé, now hus­band, who learned the pow­er of adding pep­per to soup. Of his rev­e­la­tion at his sea­son­ing prowess, Ellis deliv­ers this line on the album ​“did you just fig­ure out how sea­son­ing works? How do y’all run the world?” 

Ellis can be bru­tal, but also absurd­ly good, at bring­ing 2 ran­dom ele­ments togeth­er, whether it’s sea­son­ing a soup and male geopol­i­tics or Chica­go deep dish piz­za and home­less­ness. And none of it sounds forced, as Ellis works hard to nail tim­ing and to make her sto­ries sound casu­al. She is one of the hard­est work­ing comics in the Austin com­e­dy scene. She has a vision board. She is on a mis­sion. She will not fail you despite her sis­ter’s procla­ma­tion that she’s a ​“trash baby”.

There are so many comedic moments pep­pered through­out the album, but there are 2 things I want to point to that should nudge you to buy this album and sup­port Ellis. The first is it was a treat to hear Ellis play with char­ac­ter voic­es. It’s not some­thing I’ve seen a lot in her live per­for­mances — whether it was singing hym­nals or an impres­sion rolled out on the last track of the album, she was play­ful and sil­ly, but also poised to tell you ​“I’m fun­ny in so many more ways than what you’re used to”. The sec­ond is that Ellis under­stands pre­sen­ta­tion and pack­ag­ing — who else can pull off that gor­geous pink dress than some­one that under­stands that pre­sen­ta­tion and style are impor­tant. On my first lis­ten, as I head­ed into the last track, I was hap­pi­ly sur­prised by a call­back. I had­n’t expect­ed it, but the fact that it was there, I lit­er­al­ly wrote in my notes ​“she just tied a beau­ti­ful rib­bon to wrap up this album”. And there it was. The rev­e­la­tion that she had care­ful­ly pre­pared and pack­aged this gift con­tain­ing com­e­dy, roasts, char­ac­ter voic­es, and an over-too-soon 54 minute album inside for you to lis­ten on repeat. And there’s noth­ing trashy about that, baby.

The album was released Decem­ber 2019; grab your copy now and sup­port Jasmine!

Get it at Sure Thing Records or on iTunes/​Apple Music (search for Jas­mine Ellis).