Joy Oladokun is a kind of self-proclaimed “rare birds” who didn’t got down to change into knowledgeable musician. The incontrovertible fact that Joy now will get to write down, report, and carry out music for themself and different Black queers like them continues to be nothing lower than magic. “Maybe it’s my religious trauma, but I feel this responsibility as an artist—and not in a heavy way, in a truthful way—that if I’m going to ask people to listen to me, I want to say things that matter,” the 31-year-old, Nashville-based songwriter advised For the Record. “I want to make work that builds a bridge.”
While dwelling in LA after school, Joy discovered a job singing background vocals for a rock artist, and from there started to write down music for low-budget videographers. The work snowballed right into a viral gig, and finally, a publishing deal. A number of albums, loads of singles, and an enviable variety of excessive profile collaborations later, Joy is now making ready to launch a brand new album after which go on tour with collaborator Noah Kahan. To high it off, she was simply named Spotify’s newest GLOW artist.
GLOW is our world music program celebrating and amplifying LGBTQIA+ artists and creators. We’ll help Joy on-platform with a devoted hub and flagship GLOW playlist, and off-platform by way of billboards and different takeovers. The visibility, to her, is essential—on-line in addition to in actual life.
“Nashville reminds me of the small town that I grew up in, in rural Arizona. And it’s really interesting being so Black and so queer in a place that, at least on the outside, wants to pretend that you don’t exist. I think that there’s this real ownership and identity for me that has happened here. Yes, it’s a country music town, and I’m not a country musician, but I feel just as at home writing songs and making music here.”
Joy at all times believed within the energy of storytelling and songwriting, and now, they’ve the chance and the viewers to inform their very own tales.
“As a songwriter, I got to a place where I could have written a song for an Ariana Grande or a Carrie Underwood and that could have been gratifying. But I also was looking around the playing field and not seeing anybody like me and not seeing anybody telling stories like mine in a way that I resonated with,” they mentioned. “There are obviously queer artists, there are obviously Black queer artists—thank God for Lil Nas X—but I think for the kids who grew up watching too much Star Wars and listening to Paul Simon and geeking out to the harmonies in Crosby, Stills, and Nash records, and also lying on the floor and listening to Linkin Park’s Meteora because it’s the best thing ever, I think I fill that gap. And I get to remind people that Blackness and queerness and womanhood and gender are not monoliths.”
Listen to her tracks “sunday” or “jordan” and also you may simply hear a Twenty first-century Tracy Chapman with hints of Bob Marley, Phil Collins, and Peter Gabriel. “They used a lot of West African music and rhythms in what they did. My family is from Nigeria and West Africa, and their music feels like home. They reached out and created a bridge, musically, between a synth and a talking drum.”
Jimi Hendrix, Green Day, Nirvana, Paramore, and Metallica additionally made a big effect on the artist as a teen. “Music is the weirdest thing we do. We just make noise out into the void, hoping it connects with somebody. I can listen to a Johnny Cash record and be like, ‘I relate to this.’ But if Johnny Cash and I sat down to dinner, it would just be awkward.”
Maybe, however there’s additionally a broad vary of artists Joy has already been capable of work and report with, together with Manchester Orchestra, Mt. Joy, Noah Kahan, and Chris Stapleton. “When Chris said he would sing ‘Sweet Symphony’ with me, I think I said, ‘Are you sure?’” Joy has a photograph of herself crying after listening to their monitor collectively for the primary time. “Everyone has been so cool and so open to this sort of weird world that I’m building.”
Joy refers to their work and dwell exhibits as a sandbox at a playground—a spot the place lesbians dressed like truck drivers stand and sing their songs subsequent to precise truck drivers. But it’s not at all times a day within the solar. “I did this benefit concert in Tennessee because there’s been a lot of anti-LGBTQ legislation here. And we were like, ‘Hey, queer people live here! Imagine.’” One of the songs on the brand new report is about how no one got here to Joy’s eighth celebration, however in terms of the temper, “It sounds as if Radiohead and the Beach Boys had a baby. So I have a serious, innate desire to make beauty out of difficulty.”
Joy goals to maintain her numerous fan base in thoughts and deeply values creating artwork that enables anybody to come back to the desk to search out themselves.
“I want queer people to listen to my music and feel empowered to take up all the space that God made them to take up,” they mentioned. “I want people to feel like they can be sad or frustrated at the state of the world, or the way they’re spoken to, and feel like they still have people who care about them and advocate for them. And I think music does that.”
Listen to the singles from Joy’s upcoming album, Proof of Life, and look out for the discharge on April 28.