Mon Rovîa: From Liberian Civil War to TikTok Stardom with ‘Bloodline’
A harrowing past fueled by war and displacement has blossomed into a burgeoning music career for Mon Rovîa, the stage name of Janjay Lowe, whose debut album Bloodline is captivating audiences with its arresting serenity and poignant storytelling. Lowe’s journey, from surviving Liberia’s brutal civil war as a child to achieving viral success on TikTok, is a testament to the power of vulnerability and the enduring search for identity.
A Childhood Forged in Conflict
Long before packing out theatres and earning millions of listeners with his poetic folk-pop, Lowe began life in Liberia during a period of intense upheaval. Many of his country’s youngest citizens were tragically armed and forced to fight as child soldiers. Following the death of his mother, his grandmother sought help raising Lowe and his siblings, ultimately placing him with a white missionary family from Florida. He was the sole member of his family to escape the war, a reality that weighed heavily on him as he grew. “That is something that weighed heavy on me as I grew,” Lowe reflects. “Why was it me? Why couldn’t my siblings come, or why wasn’t it one of them?” The answers to those questions would remain elusive for years.
Reclaiming Identity Through Music
Today, Lowe’s stage name is a stylized nod to the Liberian capital, Monrovia. His songwriting directly confronts his fractured identity and the lingering effects of colonialism, both in Liberia and the United States. He believes his approach hinges on establishing trust through vulnerability. “It starts with people trusting that you’re not afraid to be vulnerable in your own way,” he explains. “Then you start talking about the bigger picture.”
Lowe intentionally cultivates a sense of quiet intimacy in his performances, eschewing grand gestures for a clarifying calm. Despite his aversion to attention, he has emerged as a leading voice among a new generation of singer-songwriters successfully translating TikTok fame into tangible success.
Bloodline: An Afro-Appalachian Folk Tapestry
Lowe’s debut album, Bloodline, deliberately contrasts the serenity of his music with the harrowing nature of his past. Critics have drawn comparisons to folk icons Nick Drake and Labi Siffre, praising the album’s elegant sensitivity. Lowe himself has coined the term “Afro-Appalachian folk” to describe his sound, recognizing the shared ancestry of the banjo – a West African predecessor – and the string band music traditions of the American South. “You just see that these things have been whitewashed over time,” he observes.
His upbringing in a white, American, middle-class environment, radically different from his birthplace, required a keen ability to adapt. “The real person that I am was never really shown,” Lowe admits. “I understood what it was to be the funny guy. I had friends easily.” Yet, beneath the surface, he battled loneliness and a sense of displacement. “I’m not OK at all, but I’m in this American space being what I need to be, the token Black guy.”
From Evangelical Roots to Musical Awakening
Lowe embraced the evangelical Christian faith of his adoptive family, and his early life revolved around church. This insulated him from mainstream American popular culture, until a move to the Bahamas during high school introduced him to artists like Fleet Foxes and Bon Iver through his foster brothers. He immersed himself in the lyrics of Mumford & Sons, drawn to the religious themes of struggle. While he eagerly contributed to songwriting with his foster brothers’ band, he initially remained behind the microphone.
After accepting a football scholarship to a conservative Presbyterian college near Chattanooga, Lowe found himself grappling with questions of adoption, identity, and survivor’s guilt. Music became a crucial outlet for processing these complex emotions and understanding his connection to the history of colonization. Adopting the name Mon Rovîa symbolized a commitment to “remember my people, remember the journey and the blessing of my life, and my mother, and my siblings that I’ve not thought about in years.”
The TikTok Breakthrough and Beyond
Initially experimenting with melodic rap and digitally programmed pop, Lowe found his voice when he posted an acoustic clip online. His friend and future manager, Eric Cromartie, advised him to embrace simplicity: “‘Go to TikTok, put the beats down and just go with your ukulele.’” Within weeks, Lowe’s music exploded in popularity.
After self-releasing EPs while working various jobs in 2020, Lowe signed with Nettwerk Music Group in 2024, the Canadian indie label that launched the career of Sarah McLachlan, allowing him to fully dedicate himself to music. “I didn’t think I would ever be able to put my full mind into music,” he says, “and now I get to.”
Bloodline reflects this newfound freedom. Tracks like “Heavy Foot,” inspired by the American civil rights movement and thinkers like James Baldwin, call for collective resistance against abuses of power. “Somewhere Down in Georgia,” born from contemplation of the South’s romanticized history, features a haunting guitar figure and lyrics that address the region’s unreconciled past. “They refuse to look at it clearly and do the things necessary to make those amends,” Lowe states. “A lot of the south lives in this place of deterioration because of that.”
Reconnecting with Roots and a Promising Future
Lowe’s music also serves as a deeply personal exploration of his own memories. “Pray the Devil Back to Hell,” inspired by a documentary of the same name, honors the Liberian women who brought an end to the civil war. “Black Cauldron” traces his evolving relationship with his mother, emphasizing that “the story doesn’t end. She has a son who miraculously gets rescued and gets to help other people on a journey of healing.”
Adding a uniquely intimate layer to Bloodline, Lowe incorporates audio clips of WhatsApp messages from his Liberian sister, with whom he recently reconnected. In the intro to “Whose Face Am I,” she addresses him in Kolokwa, revealing that his father was Senegalese.
As Lowe prepares for his second European tour, he expresses a deep longing to return to Liberia. He has been heartened by the growing recognition he’s receiving in his birth country, with Liberian bloggers posting about his music, musicians interpreting his songs, and the Liberia Music Awards recently naming him outstanding artist of the year for 2025. “It’s been the biggest joy of my life,” he says, “to be welcomed back to a place I didn’t think I would ever be welcomed to.”
