Nashville singer/songwriter Joy Oladokun was on a tour that was emotionally hard on her. She had a day off in Bend, Oregon where she took mushrooms and went down to the river. Right as they hit, she saw a moose and began writing “Letter From A Blackbird,” the opening track on her new album Observations From A Crowded Room.
“I wanted to write something that was almost a response to The Beatles’ ‘Blackbird,'” she said. “Like, what is it like for someone like me now? What is it like for the blackbird they were writing about? That journey led us here to this record.”
The album’s songwriting from there would take a raw and honest account of what it’s like being a Black, queer artist in spaces that aren’t always welcoming. She explores frustrations with the music industry and even the city she calls home, with conflicts similar to those her musical influences had to endure.
“The album I probably listened to the most while making this record was Bill Withers’ Live at Carnegie Hall,” she said. “He’s just playing with the band and talking to the audience. I also find that Bill Withers reference so specific because he left the music industry and that’s part of what I wrestle with on the record and just every day. I wanted to make a record that felt like a new folk soul, like if Bill Withers did acid type moment [Laughs]. I wanted it to have that feeling that music gives us and gave us in those times, but also to feel new.”
Throughout the album, she features three spoken-word observations that serve as interludes and are placed strategically before certain songs. On Observation #1, right after “AM I?” going into “Strong Ones,” she shares a quote from James Baldwin about progress taking time and closes out the observation by asking the question, where is the safe place for someone like me?
“I don’t know if by today’s writing standards, James Baldwin would have made a lot of money or been a bestseller,” she said. “I think that he would have required community care and support to be able to live. That is something that I thought about a lot through the making of this record is just like I’m lucky. I don’t feel like I’m exceptional, I feel like I’m lucky. I feel like I represent this crossroad between hard work and being in the right place at the right time. I wanted this record to speak to at the end of the day, statistically, being a Black queer person, I’m older than I should be. A lot of people die or disappear. It just rare for me to be where I am in this world, and I felt a responsibility to honor that space that even some of my heroes might not have been able to take up.”
Although the album is written and produced entirely herself, she still had her community of musicians and friends guiding her along the way — from A.B. Eastwood, or Aaron Sterling and Maren Morris’ on the song “No Country.” She wanted the songwriting to be her most vulnerable and reflect her own experiences.
“Not for better or for worse, but when you’re co-writing with other people, I think you’re compensating and you’re creating something together,” she said. “It’s sort of like building a house where I feel like when you’re writing alone, it’s more like building a chair or baking bread. I feel like there’s a little bit more of an intentionality and a specificity that can come in. I wanted to make an album that was honest about my experience, and I didn’t have to compromise other people’s vision or other people’s thought of what a song should say. I could just go, I need this song to say this, so I’m going to make it say that.”
When she would spend time in her parents’ home country of Nigeria, her mom would make her sit with a recorder and record her grandma telling stories about her life growing up so they could keep a record of what my family has done. As she’s gotten older, every time she feels like her parents are saying something cool, she starts recording and that’s how the conversation for Observation #2 came together.
“I was telling my mommy about how mean everybody in this city is to me,” she laughs. “That’s where it starts and she says, ‘People do stuff that they wouldn’t tolerate for themselves, not because they feel anything about you, but because they’re scared and insecure and that really has nothing to do with you.’”
The observation is placed right before the song “Hollywood” featuring Nashville rapper Brian Brown and she said on this song she’s asking herself the question, “If Bill Withers could say the N-word freely without feeling like he could alienate his white audience, how would he do it?”
“Historically, white artists in white-dominated genres have bitten off the art and sounds of Black people, while disrespecting Black people and profiting off the art that Black people have made,” she said. “It’s crazy because I said the N-word and my sales didn’t double, but if I was a white boy, I’m pretty sure that’s exactly what would happen.”
“I feel like this observation is my way of saying, having a group amongst three Black people and talking about what it’s like to be different in this world and marking it before that song was important to me because I think when you make a sound that’s considered white-dominated, people can erase that part of your identity. For you to have to contend with my mom’s Nigerian accent and with me being honest about how I feel, and then having to go on a song that talks about the fact that I do make music, so my mom doesn’t have to work anymore. I do it so I could pay my mortgage and that’s it. I don’t really care at this point about people recognizing me on the street. I really have been able to build something that provides for people. I think Observation #2 and “Hollywood” give context into that. For some people, making music is about getting people to pay attention to them and then for other people, it’s their best shot at changing the trajectory of their family’s lives.”
In Observation #2, Joy’s mom also talks about her daughter’s temperament and the fact that even though she’s been able to accomplish so much with her music, she hasn’t changed very much. Joy says having someone that knows her say something like that is such a badge of honor.
“Sure, I can text famous people to come and play on my record, but that doesn’t make me more special than anybody else with the job,” she said. “In no universe does me being in Adult Glee Club make me cooler or more important than anybody else. What’s affirming is the person that I am and the person that I’m trying to be in my day-to-day life and the growth that I see there. How I see it affects the energy at my shows, how I see it affects the culture of my team and the people I work with. For the people around me to still want to be around me. For the people I love to still be proud of who I am and not just what I have made. That is the most affirming thing and that’s what I touch on ‘Flowers’ and ‘Good Enough’ is just like I have family, I’m able to support myself and them. I know that what I’ve done is, for the most part, as best as I can, motivated so purely. That’s all I can do, when I lay my head on the pillow, all I can say is, ‘You wore your heart on your sleeve again, you silly goose, congratulations.'”
On the final observation of the album, before the songs “I’d Miss the Birds” and “Goodbye,” Oladokun talks about purpose. She says this album is just the beginning of the conversation surrounding the music industry in Nashville, but she can’t be the only one trying to change culture.
“What the change in the culture looks like for me, is everybody taking the work seriously,” she said. “I think four years ago, there was a lot of talk and thought about even just the makeup of, like, festival lineups. We saw a huge difference, there was more queer, POC and female representation on festival lineups. Go look at festival lineups today, [Laughs]. It’s like we forgot that we said we were going to try. It’s not regression, it’s almost like when you have a bad habit, you get so comfortable in that bad habit that even if someone teaches you a new way, you go back to doing things the wrong way.”
The artist continued: “I think for me, my job is to be honest and to keep pressure on people to remember the promises that they made to all sorts of people years ago. I think it’s on people outside of the communities that I represent to make good on those promises and to really ask themselves, ‘What am I supporting and what is it saying? What am I turning a blind eye to because it’s groovy? What am I uplifting? What am I saying?’ I don’t always think it’s because you think the music is good, I think it’s because you think it’s easier not to think about things, that’s lazy as hell. It’s not my job to fix that part, it’s just my job to go put more women on the festival and honestly it truly doesn’t have to be me. I don’t have to be the Black queer person representing it. It’s just like, please, think about people that are unlike you when you’re making work for people in this world.”
“I think that part of this record is me reckoning with the fact that I am an introvert and quiet person by nature, but some people are so garbage,” she said. “I have to keep speaking up, because if I don’t say something about how uncomfortable something makes me or about the way I’ve been disrespected in culture in a room, then the next marginalized person, the next not-in-the-majority human being that walks into this space probably will have to deal with the same things. But if I can make people think twice, it might not change things for me, but it will probably change things for the person coming up behind me. That’s super important because, honestly, I’m complaining so much because a bunch of people didn’t do that work [Laughs]. Everything I’ve done is in hopes that people coming up after me have a bit of an easier time.”
Oladokun plans on touring for this album, stopping at the Ryman on March 27, and says the opportunity to headline shows has been rewarding, especially in providing that positive space that isn’t often offered to her and the opportunity to be surrounded by people who look and love like her.
“The energy at my shows is really beautiful,” she said. “I think being on tour with other people or being in other people’s environment, it has taught me that a lot of that comes from the top down. As intentional as I can be as the artist, in my own environment, is to make sure things feel good and that people take care of each other. When I’m at somebody else’s show or in somebody else’s room, it’s their responsibility or not their responsibility to take that on. People have shouted racist things at me when I’m opening for other people and the security guards have honestly been horrible for the most part. I’ve experienced a lot of stuff that I know my white friends just don’t experience. I think that for me it’s about creating the space that you want friends or people of all spaces to inhabit, and I don’t think everybody is interested in doing that work.”
Now that the album is out and people are receiving the message of Observations from a Crowded Room, she says there is a sense of relief that this record is out into the universe.
“I genuinely think it’s like such a beautiful record,” she said. “That doesn’t mean that I made it perfectly. It just means for someone who had to teach themselves so much to accomplish this, I really am proud of what it became and I’m so proud of the songwriting and its sort of like the Afrofuturist aspect of it where I just am trying to push folk, Black, and whatever type of music into the future and not trying to keep it siloed in the past. I’m stoked that it’s out and I can’t wait to take a nap.”
Check out the full conversation with Joy Oladokun here and it can also be found on WNXP’s podcast channel.