Eden xo


Jessica Eden Malakouti is an American singer, songwriter, and actress. She has formerly released music as Jessie and the Toy Boys, Eden xo, and Jessie Malakouti.

Background

Eden grew up in a multicultural household in Moreno Valley, California. She is of Iranian descent on her father's side and European American on her mother's side. She has two younger brothers, Jared and Michael. Her older half siblings are half Mexican. Eden comes from a musical family, as her father played harmonica and her mother would play church hymns on an antique upright piano in their house. As a young child, Eden first wrote songs by taking her poems and putting them to melodies on the family piano. When Malakouti was in the 5th grade she was cast as Wendy Darling in her elementary school's production of Peter Pan. Eden had a love for performing and writing music from an early age. When she was 12 years old, she would write and pre-rehearse raps at home then go to school the following day and battle other kids as though it was freestyle rap.

Career

2007–2009: Career beginnings with Shut Up Stella

At age 16, Malakouti emancipated herself from her parents, graduated high school two years early, and moved to Hollywood to pursue her show business dreams.
Soon after arriving in Hollywood, Malakouti started an all-female band called Shut Up Stella, which signed with Epic Records in 2007. Shut Up Stella's music appeared in a variety of media between 2007–2008; "Watch Me Rain" was featured in MTV's and "Welcome to My Party" appeared in the 2008 films Girl, Positive and Baby Mama. On March 27, 2008 Shut Up Stella was dropped by Epic and Malakouti decided to go solo.
In 2008, Malakouti's songs "Trash Me" and "Outsider" appeared in episodes of MTV's The Hills. The songs were also independently self-released as music videos and digital downloads.
In December 2008, Malakouti signed a publishing deal with EMI and spent two years in London working on dance music with Fred Falke as well as writing for UK production house Xenomania.
The result of this time was a single called "Standing Up for the Lonely" which was released on British dance label Ministry of Sound. "Standing Up for the Lonely" also appeared in The Annual 2010 and Dance Nation 2 compilation albums.

2010–13: Jessie and The Toy Boys and other projects

Jessie and The Toy Boys was launched in March 2010 with the first single "Push It" being released in February 2011 which peaked at 7 on the Billboard dance chart. As well as "Push It", on the same day, "Valentine" and "We Own the Night" were also released. These songs were used by The CW in their general promos for the network, as well as the station's written "motto" in their station promos.
In June 2011, Jessie and The Toy Boys released an EP titled Show Me Your Tan Lines, and Malakouti made her television debut on Conan. During this time, Jessie and The Toy Boys was one of the opening acts during Britney Spears' sixth concert tour, the Femme Fatale Tour.
During this time she recorded her next single, "Lets Get Naughty" which was released in October 2011 and performed on Femme Fatale Tour. Malakouti was a main stage act alongside Kaskade, Rusko, Steve Aoki, and Avicii on the Identity Festival.
Jessie and The Toy Boys' debut album This Is How Rumours Start was due out in early 2012 but has failed to surface. Although there was no album release, Malakouti released a few YouTube videos of unreleased songs during 2012 as well as a music video for "On with My Bad Self", but none of the songs were later officially released.
In May 2013, Malakouti released a music video for what was originally a Toy Boys song, "White Girl Wasted" under her real name, Jessie Malakouti. This sparked rumors that she would no longer be releasing music under the name Jessie and The Toy Boys.
On September 27, 2013, Malakouti uploaded a picture via her Facebook page confirming that she had signed a new recording contract with Virgin Records. Along with a new record deal, Malakouti would be re-branding herself again with a new name as well, Eden xo, derived from her middle name.

2014–2018: Eden xo, "Too Cool to Dance," "The Weekend," and songwriting

On June 2, 2014, Malakouti released her debut single under the name Eden xo, "Too Cool to Dance". An accompanying "homemade GIF video" was released the same day as the song premiered on iTunes. On July 23, a lyric video to the song was released onto the official Vevo channel for Eden xo and an accompanying audio video was released on August 14. Throughout August and September, Malakouti released a series of remixes of "Too Cool to Dance" on her SoundCloud page. The official music video for "Too Cool to Dance" was released on September 17, 2014 on Vevo.
"Too Cool to Dance" was featured in 2014's 4th annual National Dance Day. So You Think You Can Dance producer and judge Nigel Lythgoe choreographed a special routine to the song and encouraged the public to submit their own dance videos performing the routine. In December 2014 "Too Cool To Dance" peaked at number 31 on the American Top 40 Chart. Following the exit of Eden's A&R Ron Fair, Virgin Records changed singles and pulled the song from radio.
On February 16, 2015, Malakouti debuted her next single, titled "The Weekend", on JustJared.com. Later that day, her official Vevo account uploaded live versions of "Too Cool to Dance" and "The Weekend", revealing that she was their next Vevo DSCVR artist. "The Weekend" was then made available for purchase on iTunes and Amazon on February 17, 2015.
On February 23, Eden xo performed on Good Morning America to promote her latest single "The Weekend". She also confirmed via her Twitter account that her debut EP is titled "Dirty Blonde" and will be released in 2015.
On March 13, 2015, Malakouti released a remix of "The Weekend" featuring rapper Lil Jon. On March 24, 2015, Malakouti released a lyric video of the original version on her official Vevo.
Malakouti shot the music video for "The Weekend" on May 2, 2015 and streamed the behind-the-scenes happenings live on the Periscope app. YouTube personality Ricky Dillon appears in the video. Pop singer-songwriter Bonnie McKee appears as "CinderHella." The music video premiered on July 24 on Snapchat's The Snap Channel. The next day, Malakouti uploaded the video to her non-Vevo YouTube account. That summer Eden co-headlined The Los Angeles Pride festival on June 13, 2015 alongside Tinashe, Kesha, and Fifth Harmony.
On August 21, 2015, Miami Heat guard Dwyane Wade uploaded videos of him lip-syncing "The Weekend" as well as The Black Eyed Peas hit, "I Gotta Feeling."
On September 18, 2015, Malakouti released a new single titled "Hold Me Now", which is a cover of the Thompson Twins hit with some new lyrics written by Malakouti. Malakouti's version is featured in the pilot episode of The Fox TV series, Scream Queens.
In 2016, Malakouti appeared as a featured artist on DJ Swick's song "Sideline."
On September 30, 2016, Malakouti released the single and music video, "El Barrio." Artist Rafael Reyes makes a cameo in the video as Eden's love interest.
Malakouti focused on writing material for other major artists, such as KYGO, Armin Van Buuren and Ava Max, for much of 2017 and half of 2018, before returning to the studio in London, Los Angeles and Stockholm to concentrate on her own music career.

2019–Present: ''The Question''

On June 28, 2019 Eden released her debut EP entitled The Question via independent record label AlphaOmega Records. The six track EP was made available digitally and on vinyl and included remixes of lead singles "So Lucky" by British dance duo Just Kiddin, and "Have It All" by theF9, formally of Freemasons. A promotional music video for "So Lucky" was released and featured an appearance by Angelyne.
The Question was well received by critics. Peter Robinson of Popjustice described the collection as 'an EP that fizzes with future-facing pop flair and classic songwriting...brilliantly expressive'
In October 2019, Eden released a cover of Tones and I's hit single "Dance Monkey" and an original song titled "Bad Girls Go To Heaven" with longtime collaborator Bonnie Mckee. The duet was featured in episode 303 of The CW's TV series Dynasty.

Discography

Filmography

Tours

Opening act