“These are my authentic words straight from the heart,” sings junior Neiyo Hagens on the title  track of his latest project “authentic words from the heart.” On Jan. 26, Hagens released his third album on Spotify, Apple Music and Youtube. With 15 songs, Hagens’ album discusses coming-of-age themes like love and heartbreak and reflects on Hagens’ experiences of his own high school relationships.

Hagens has been pursuing music for three years, ever since he entered high school. His first song release was “lost me,” and since then, he has released two albums and nine singles and extended plays. Hagens has also earned artist verification on Spotify — a long but rewarding process. These steps have set Hagens up on the pathway to his dream of being a performer one day.

“Sometimes, I play my music while I’m showering and act like I’m on stage,” Hagens said. “It depends on luck to become big with music. It would definitely be nice to be on stage one day.”

When Hagens first started out with music, his biggest inspiration was rapper Polo G. As an aspiring musician in the R&B genre, Hagens enjoyed Polo G’s use of melodic rap tune styles in his songs. In fact, earlier in Hagens’ career, his artist name was Neiyo G as inspired by Polo G. 

“I liked [Polo G’s] message and his music. A lot of his lyrics and his music inspires the younger audience, which was me at the time. He was a big inspiration with music and made me want to start myself,” Hagens said.

Since beginning his journey in music, Hagens has frequently used the online music creation program BandLab to create his songs. He writes some bars of his own, and for others, he punches in — a method to sing one bar at a time until the end of the song. Using custom presets, Hagens also designs songs to match a specific vibe or message. 

“I make a lot of love songs about relationships and heartbreak. I love [songs] that people can relate to in high school with young love,” Hagens said. “I make a lot of songs to try and connect to people through that type of music.”

For his new album “authentic words from the heart,” Hagens went through an extensive music-making process. From Nov. 2024, Hagens has continued tweaking and editing his lyrics and composition outside of school. To create his final tracklist, Hagens chose songs that he felt were the most impactful thematically to connect with his listeners.

“I started the first song [of the album] last year. It’s been a pretty long process and I picked songs that I genuinely loved and felt like the message would connect with others,” Hagens said. “One of my favorites on the album is called ‘for a special someone.’ It’s another love song that I am really proud of.”

Now, Hagens has amassed more than 40 monthly listeners on Spotify. He credits his friends and supporters juniors Cooper Oswald, Jonah Wool and sophomore Braden Lenz for his success.

“Hagens and I go way back, but we got super close this summer and we hung out every day. He was basically living at my house,” Oswald said. “[Hagens] is a good lyricist and his flow is good.”

Oswald also contributed to Hagens’ album by making beats and experimenting with different sounds. He was featured in “dosage,” a track on “authentic words from the heart.” Currently, “dosage” is Hagens’ No. 1 song on Spotify.

“I discovered [Hagens] made music and I was interested in that. We were playing around with sounds and we locked in to make a bunch of music,” Oswald said.

Hagens and his friends have advertised “authentic words from the heart” on social media. The album has also gained a lot of traction through word of mouth on school grounds. In the future, while Hagens plans to attend barber school and cut hair professionally, he also hopes to continue making music and one day perform on stage. 

“[Barber school] would be a great option for me behind music for sure,” Hagens said. “[But] I’ve always looked at [music] as a hobby to keep the authenticity to my sound. My main goal has always been to encourage my listeners to do the same: be authentic.”