Jennifer Lopez, who plays Amalie Arena in Tampa, Florida on Aug. 27, 2024. Credit: Photo c/o 2B Entertainment

Jenny from the block is coming to Tampa, and her new album has a deep connection to our neck of the woods.

Last week, the Grammy-nominated iconic singer-songwriter, dancer, and actress announced a big ol’ tour behind a new album, This Is Me… Now, released last weekend in tandem with a new Amazon Original film.

Tickets to see Jennifer Lopez play Tampa’s Amalie Arena on Tuesday, Aug. 27 go on sale Friday, Feb. 23 at 10 a.m. EST and start at $49.95.
On “The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon,” Lopez, 54, said that the process to get to the album has taken two years. She called the record her most honest album to date, and something where she dug deep into every single detail. “It was draining,” she admitted in response to her past comments about it being her last album.

And along for the ride was Tampa-based artist and designer Joel Cook, who was also part of the team that earned a 2022 Best Recording Package Grammy nomination for its work on Voyeurist by local heavy-metal band Underoath.

The 43-year-old’s company, Obelus Era, worked on the visual identity for Lopez’s This Is Me… Now era—including the six different album covers

“I worked with Jennifer and her management team in Beverly Hills last summer to create overall aesthetic, feel, and iconography,” Cook, creative director at Obelus Era, told Creative Loafing Tampa Bay last week. “We worked with photographer Norman Jean Roy on photography. Nate Utesch from the Obelus team designed branding, typography, icons, color based on creative direction set by Jennifer and myself. All the branding was incorporated into the Prime movie premiering today and tour announce.”

Last night at Los Angeles’ Orpheum Theater, Lopez performed music from the album for the first time ever during an Apple Music Live Event that included an interview by Zane Lowe.

“It’s not just personal, it’s my whole heart on the wax. It’s my whole heart in the air, and the ether now,” Lopez told Lowe. “And I really feel like, as I shared the music, I wasn’t just sharing music, I was sharing a feeling, a message, a bigger idea about, and that’s why it just didn’t end with the music for me.”