Nottingham-based singer/songwriter JERUB captures the uneasy beauty of living in between – between belief and doubt, holding on and letting go, past and future – on ‘The Wonder Years,’ a spirited, soulful seven-song mixtape that finds meaning not in answers, but in presence.

Stream: ‘The Wonder Years’ – JERUB

“They got me singin’ ‘Kumbaya,’ but I don’t know what it means…”

JERUB turns a well-worn word into something raw and revelatory on “Kumbaya,” a spirited, stomping folk rock anthem that burns from the inside out. What starts as a lonely night prayer quickly swells into a full-bodied, beat-and-clap catharsis, his smoldering voice rising over drums, handclaps, and soaring melody as if he is wrestling with heaven in real time. It’s bold and breathless, feverish and uplifting all at once – a rousing, radiant reverie that holds doubt and devotion in the same outstretched hands.

If “Kumbaya” is the spark, The Wonder Years is the fire it’s lighting. Out now, JERUB’s seven-track mixtape frames a season of restless becoming – songs written for the messy, complicated now, where the past keeps tugging, the future keeps looming, and the present is the only place that can hold you.

Rain fallin’ on a lonely night
Just waitin’ on the sun to rise (mmm)
Come mornin’ and my tears are dry
Still prayin’ it will be alright (mmm)
I’m supposed to stay strong
Heaven knows, I try

They got me singin’ Kumbaya,
but I don’t know what it means
‘Cause I’ve been to the moon and back,
but I still can’t find release
Now every time I close my eyes,
it’s so clear to see
Where you are is where I wanna be
Oh, where you are is where I wanna be

– “Kumbaya,” JERUB

For a Nottingham-based singer/songwriter who has steadily built his world on emotional honesty and connection, The Wonder Years feels less like a departure than a deepening. Following earlier releases that established his gift for soulful storytelling and open-hearted vulnerability, this mixtape captures JERUB at a moment of reckoning – more comfortable sitting inside uncertainty, more willing to ask questions without rushing toward answers. It’s a project shaped not by grand reinvention, but by accumulation: Lived experience, hard conversations, quiet realizations, and the slow confidence that comes from trusting your voice enough to let it breathe.

Across The Wonder Years, that tension shows up in different colors and contours: The raw vulnerability of “Hear You Calling,” the devotion and steadiness at the heart of “Back To Life,” the present-tense awakening of the title track “Wonder Years,” and the soft-sunlight safety of “Rare.” Fan favorites “Let It Go” and “Deeper” round out the tracklist with the same open-nerve honesty, making the mixtape feel less like a collection of singles and more like a body of work built to be lived inside.

“The Wonder Years came from a really ordinary moment,” JERUB tells Atwood Magazine. “I was on the phone with the tax man, totally frustrated, and I caught myself wishing I could rewind to when life felt simpler. Then straight after, I was wishing I could fast forward to a time when things might be easier. It made me realise how often we live anywhere but the present, either missing the past or waiting for the future.”

“That thought became the heart of this mixtape. It’s about recognising that these moments, right now, are just as important. Maybe these are the wonder years. It’s also about allowing space to question things, to reflect, to not have it all figured out. The songs sit in that space between presence and curiosity. I wanted it to feel raw, real, and unfiltered, like the live shows where everything is out in the open.”

The mixtape’s lead single “Deeper” aches in all the right ways – a passionate, soul-stirring promise of presence and unconditional love that holds steady when everything else feels unmoored. The song unfolds like a hand on the shoulder in the dark, JERUB singing not as a savior but as a companion. “I will love you deeper the further you fall,” he vows, framing devotion not as rescue, but as staying. It’s tenderness with backbone, vulnerability without collapse – a quiet anthem for loving someone through their hardest moments.

“‘Deeper’ is a song about showing up for someone, not just when things are good, but when they’re at their lowest,” JERUB explains. “It’s about loving without conditions – through the mess, the doubt, the days when they don’t even feel worthy of it. I wrote this because that’s the kind of love I believe in, the kind I try to give. But honestly, it’s also the kind of love I want to receive.”

“We all have moments when we feel like we’re too much, too broken, or too far gone. This song is a reminder that we’re not. That real love – whether from a friend, a partner, or anyone who truly sees us – doesn’t waver when things get heavy. It goes deeper.”

“Let It Go,” meanwhile, captures a different kind of sentiment. Brighter in tone but no less searching, the song lives in the push and pull between holding on and learning to release. Written from what JERUB describes as a place of “quiet reckoning,” it confronts the weight of expectations, old versions of the self, and the fear of stepping forward without certainty. Its uplift is hard-won, born from the realization that freedom sometimes arrives only after we loosen our grip.

In the wider emotional arc of The Wonder Years, “Kumbaya” still feels like both a centerpiece and a compass – the song that most clearly names the tension the mixtape is circling. Its hook doesn’t arrive as comfort first, but as confession: The ache of trying, reaching, believing, and still waking up with the weight intact. “They got me singin’ Kumbaya, but I don’t know what it means / ’Cause I’ve been to the moon and back, but I still can’t find release,” JERUB sings, giving voice to spiritual exhaustion without surrender.

That push and pull sits at the heart of the song’s meaning. The word Kumbaya, he explains, comes from “come by here” – once a prayer for comfort, now softened into cliché – and the track leans fully into that contradiction. “It lives in that fragile space between hope and uncertainty,” he says, describing it as “a song about faith and searching… a quiet prayer, a love song, and a reflection all at once.” Rather than resolving that tension, the song holds it open, honoring doubt as part of devotion rather than its opposite.

Sonically, that inner conflict is matched by the track’s physical lift. “Kumbaya” taps into the stomp-clap tradition of modern folk rock, but JERUB reshapes it into something communal and alive. A steady, pulsing beat and bright, chiming chords carry his vocal from hushed confession to full-throated release, widening until it feels less like one person’s prayer and more like a room full of voices answering back. Folk-textured yet stadium-ready, intimate yet explosive, the song becomes one expression of the larger emotional truth running through The Wonder Years: Not answers, but presence; not certainty, but connection.

What makes The Wonder Years feel so vital is not just its emotional honesty, but its sense of timing.

These songs arrive without pretense or polish for polish’s sake, carrying the lived-in warmth of moments caught as they are rather than shaped into something neater. There is a generosity in that approach – an openness that invites listeners into the room instead of placing the music at a remove. Whether he’s offering reassurance, wrestling with doubt, or simply naming the feeling of being here now, JERUB writes with a rare lack of armor, trusting that connection comes not from certainty, but from showing up as you are.

That spirit runs through the mixtape’s sequencing and tone, too. Songs like “Deeper” and “Let It Go” don’t just complement “Kumbaya” – they widen the emotional field around it, tracing different responses to the same core tension: How to stay open when the world encourages retreat, how to keep choosing presence when distraction is easier. The Wonder Years doesn’t chase resolution or reinvention; it captures a moment of becoming, where growth is incremental and faith is practiced rather than proclaimed. In that way, the mixtape feels less like a statement and more like an offering – a body of work built to be returned to, lived with, and felt in real time.

Taken together, this mixtape doesn’t resolve the questions it raises – it honors them, offering songs that sit with uncertainty long enough for meaning to surface. Read our conversation below as JERUB reflects on the making of The Wonder Years, the ordinary moments that sparked its biggest questions, and the songs that taught him how to stay present inside them.

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:: stream/purchase The Wonder Years here ::

:: connect with JERUB here ::

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Stream: “Kumbaya” – JERUB

A CONVERSATION WITH JERUB

JERUB: I’m a really simple guy. I just love writing songs that make people feel something. For me, it’s always about connection, honest stories, real emotion, and trying to capture what it means to be human. If my music can make someone feel seen or a little less alone, then I’ve done my job.

JERUB: The Wonder Years came from a really ordinary moment. I was on the phone with the tax man, totally frustrated, and I caught myself wishing I could rewind to when life felt simpler. Then straight after, I was wishing I could fast forward to a time when things might be easier. It made me realise how often we live anywhere but the present, either missing the past or waiting for the future.

That thought became the heart of this mixtape. It’s about recognising that these moments, right now, are just as important. Maybe these are the wonder years. It’s also about allowing space to question things, to reflect, to not have it all figured out. The songs sit in that space between presence and curiosity. I wanted it to feel raw, real, and unfiltered, like the live shows where everything is out in the open.

JERUB: Those earlier projects were about finding my sound and learning how to tell my story. With The Wonder Years, I feel like I’ve gone deeper, sonically and emotionally. I leaned more into space and rawness, letting every feeling breathe. There are folk textures, soulful vocals, and indie-pop moments, but it all comes from the same place: honest storytelling.

It feels like the most “me” I’ve sounded on record, warm, vulnerable, and alive. We really wanted it to carry the same energy as my live shows, where everything feels immediate and connected.

JERUB: “Kumbaya” lives in that fragile space between hope and uncertainty. The word itself comes from “come by here,” which was once a spiritual, a prayer for comfort, but over time it’s become a bit of a cliché. That’s what the song explores for me: what it feels like to keep holding on to hope, even when it feels distant or quiet.

At its heart, it’s a song about faith and searching. I’ve had moments where my hope felt stretched thin, and I found myself still reaching out, still believing something or someone bigger would meet me there. When that hope finally becomes real, when you sense that presence or love that makes life make sense again, it’s powerful. Kumbaya is a quiet prayer, a love song, and a reflection all at once.

JERUB: I grew up listening to all kinds of music, and folk was a big part of that. I think it naturally bleeds into what I do. “Kumbaya” actually started from this cool folky melody, and the lyric just kind of came out of it without me overthinking.

That’s the beauty of songwriting sometimes: The song tells you what it wants to be. I just followed where it was going. I hope people feel that blend of honesty and energy, that mix of soul and folk that makes you want to both reflect and sing along.

JERUB: “Rare” is about finding a kind of love that feels completely safe, a love where you can be vulnerable and still be met with care. It’s that moment when you tell someone the truth about who you are, and instead of pulling away, they draw closer.

Jonny and I wrote it from that place, both experiencing and trying to describe that kind of connection. For me, it’s a love letter to safety. It’s about realising that love isn’t just passion or intensity, it’s the peace of being fully seen and still fully loved. That’s rare, and when you find it, it changes you.

JERUB: I hope it reminds people to stay curious, to keep asking questions, and to be okay with not having all the answers. To be present, even when things aren’t perfect, and to find wonder in the in-between moments.

For me, making this mixtape taught me how powerful honesty can be. It’s made me more comfortable sitting with uncertainty and more grateful for the moments that make up right now.

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:: stream/purchase The Wonder Years here ::

:: connect with JERUB here ::

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Stream: “Kumbaya” – JERUB

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