2023: Joy Denalane
Photo: Sony Music, Timothy Schaumburg. All rights reserved.
A song about death and grief called “Happy”? It seems completely absurd at first, but for Joy Denalanes it fits. While the singer was working on her upcoming album “Willpower” (released on October 6th), she lost her father, to whom she was very close. The incident not only shaped Denalane’s attitude to life, but also the sound of the record. Death, birth, the end and the new beginning are therefore the crucial themes. “Since my father died, I have been going through the world differently, and that has flipped a switch,” reflects the soul artist.
For the track, which the singer wrote specifically for her father, she worked with him Wu-Tang Clan rapper Ghostface Killah together, giving the song another powerful voice. Joy Denalane ends the chorus with the line “In the happy for the loss“, which means something like “I am happy about the loss”. “This is of course an apparent contradiction,” explains Denalane of the lyrics. And further: “It’s about my enormous appreciation of the last years of his life that we still had together when he was no longer feeling so well. Our already special relationship even intensified.”
The accompanying music video for the single is also very personal. It was filmed in Johannesburg, the home of Joy Denalane’s father. In the video, the singer mourns with her (real) family members, in the garden and living room of one of the family houses in Soweto.
In November, Joy Denalane will go on her “Willpower Tour”, with which she will play eight concerts in Germany. Tickets can be purchased here.