Joy Oladokun
Singer/Songwriter
Nashville, Tennessee
While we cherish all of our NBT features, this one is truly special. It’s not often that we will put the tag on one and say “this is absolutely going to be a big thing”. I think, with Joy, we can say that.
The daughter of Nigerian immigrants, Joy grew up in Arizona with influences ranging from folk and country to Lauryn Hill and the likes. It’s funny listening to her music and not being able to pinpoint one true genre, as she does span and dip her toe into everything — but the highest of compliments would be that the influence that Tracy Chapman had on Joy very much carries over into her own music. She is Tracy for the modern kid.
We first caught wind of Joy in early 2020 with “Sunday” and “Too High”, and rode the wave of her ‘20 full length In Defense of my Own Happiness (The Beginnings) with it cracking our End of the Year Top 25. “Smoke” was one of our top 50 songs of the year, and we were officially on watch for all things Joy. It truly is close to a perfect album, detailing Joy’s journey as a queer woman of color, navigating things like happiness, relationships, LGBTQ community, and spirituality.
“Mercy” dropped during the BLM movement, talking her experience as a Black person in the US, plus the systemic racism critique that is “I See America”. Joy, much like Tracy, was using her craft for change - which is an amazing feat.
After the release and the singles, she signed with Republic/Verve and the album was re-released with a differing and reordered track list plus a few new songs, teaming with Maren Morris and Penny and Sparrow, plus having a feature with Noah Kahan on “Someone Like You”, which has surpassed 20 million streams on Spotify and 3 million views on YouTube.
2022 has seen Joy already drop a few singles over the first quarter, including the stunning “Purple Haze” and “Fortune Favors the Bold”. Joy is on a rocket to the moon currently, with her next album possibly being the one that takes her from playing 1000 cap rooms to 3k rooms, opening arena shows, and on the road to being the next big thing. And we couldn’t be rooting harder for any one person than we are for Joy and the abundant amount of success she has and is going to have.
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