Joy Oladakun

One Liner: Low key folky R&B with a great voice.

Wikipedia Genre: folk, R&B, pop, roots rock
Home: Casa Grande, Arizona (now Nashville)

Poster Position: 16
Weekend One Only.

Friday at 2:30 on the Lady Bird Stage.

Thoughts:  Her top single features Maren Morris, so I figured this was going to be a country thing, but it is not a country thing.  Her self-penned Spotify bio says that she is a songwriter, a sensitive stoner, and that she lives in Nashville with her girlfriend and dog.

Her discography is a little confusing.  Wikipedia says she released Carry Me in 2016 after a kickstarter campaign.  Then it says on July 17, 2020, she released 2020's In Defense of My Own Happiness.  Then it says on June 4, 2021, she released her third studio album In Defense of My Own Happiness.  And when you look on Spotify, she indeed has two albums with the same title and mostly different songs on them.  Not sure why she recycled the album name.

She's got a great voice.  Many of her songs are very low key, not much in the way of accompaniment, so the voice is what is showcased.  "sunday" is the top streamer, which is from the first of her two albums with the same name, her second album.  14.4 million streams.

"I keep God locked in a picture frame, so I feel a little better 'bout my numbered days" is a great line.  She said " 'Sunday' is the song that 12-year-old Joy, seated in the back of church youth group, needed to hear. She needed to hear that you can be queer and happy. Queer and healthy. Queer and holy. She needed to see married women kissing and playing with their kids."

She does a very spare cover of "My Girl" that is lovely.  The Maren Morris-assisted tune - "Bigger Man" is also good, lyrically interesting.  "taking the heat" keeps making me think of the Billy Joel song "Vienna."  I think it's just the tune, because lyrically they are nothing alike.  Overall, most of these songs are very chill - there isn't a lot of instrumentation to clutter up the singer-songwriter vibe.  Her second-most streamed is a single from 2019, called "Blink Twice," with 6.2 million streams.

Organ/synth instead of guitar, but see what I mean?  Just the most basic of a tune in the background of the vocals.  I kind of wish for a little more action from a band, but I also get the idea of making the lyrics the centerpiece of the track.  And some tracks, like the opener from her newest album, include a drummer and some strings, but I still have a yearning for a real band to jam in the background.  Like, "i see america," that one drives a little bit and sounds more interesting to me.

I don't think I'd go out of my way to see this, but its nice.  If I ended up at this stage I'd probably enjoy it.