How Fifteen Years of Pep Talks Helped Joyelle Johnson “Love Joy” Onstage

at
Share This Post

As pre-show pep talks go, it’ll likely be pretty hard to top the one that precedes Joyelle Johnson’s Love Joy, landing on Peacock Friday, November 5th.

Before she takes the stage at Brooklyn’s Union Hall for her special taping – a milestone that doubled as her fortieth birthday party – we see her receiving well wishes from the likes of Michelle Buteau, Ilana Glazer, Gina Yashere (who Johnson affectionately calls “her big sister in comedy”), Seth Meyers, George Wallace, Seth Meyers, and Jimmy Fallon – who is to be thanked for much of the whirlwind year that Johnson’s had.

“I thankfully booked The Tonight Show, which is amazing and life-changing for a career just in general,” Johnson shared with me in a conversation ahead of the special’s release. “But from there, it went to ‘Jimmy Fallon and his production company would like to produce your special,’…the words still sound weird coming out of my mouth!”

But for anyone who’s seen Johnson work, there’s little surprise merited. Her fifteen years of stand up experience are on full display in the special, which moves deftly from conversations about navigating an interracial relationship, to the therapy she fully advocates we all get, to her relationship with her father, to the perils of living with roommates – all with an ease and, well, joy, that feels effortlessly infused into the final product, her sense of self, and (of course) her name.

When I asked Johnson if that joy comes naturally to her, her answer surprised me a bit.

“Well, I am a big proponent of fake it until you make it,” she said, noting that she is more naturally prone to feeling like “A ball of anxiety.” But she’s learned to both live with and accept that feeling, in part because of the advice that she’s so inclined to ask for:

What I’ve realized is that the nerves aren’t necessarily gonna leave, because the stakes keep rising. So once you get used to okay, open mics gave me nerves when I first started. But then once I got used to open mics, now it’s a gig, then you get used to paid gigs. Now it’s like auditioning for the Comedy Cellar, and I have to follow legendary comedians every other night.

So she’s learning to find joy in the nerves that are a part of who she is, calling them “the respect we pay our audience,” but never letting them take her out of the moment she’s in – and that she wants to enjoy. “It took over a decade but I am now having fun and, and I’m happy that it shows.”

It’s an energy that Johnson is looking forward to bringing into new realms as she moves into her 41st year. Moving from standup into acting and hosting is on her radar, the latter of which has been flexed with her role as cohost on You’re Welcome, America, a show she shares with Indigenous comedian Adrienne Chalepah. The pair’s show, a co-production of Illuminative and the Center for Media and Social Impact, allows Johnson to combine humor with social impact and action – something her comedy has always valued, and which she’s pleased to get to bring into this new space. She said of the show (which airs weekly on Illuminative’s YouTube channel), “the conversations we had were fulfilling for me where I’m like, ‘I’m getting something out of this and getting paid? That’s the goal, that is the absolute goal.”

As 2021 draws to a close and Johnson looks ahead to what’s next, she’s looking forward to giving some of those pep talks that helped her along the path to her first special. “[I] also just [want to] be a role model for little girls!” And with a new special and opportunities to flex her hosting chops in place, as well as the respect of new audiences and the wisdom of a career spent learning, those little girls would be incredibly lucky to have her.

Love Joy is available on Peacock today, and her album Yell Joy is available through Blonde Medicine. Catch Joyelle on the road by checking her tour dates at joyellenicole.com

 

Read more comedy news.

 

The following two tabs change content below.

Amma Marfo

Amma Marfo is a writer, speaker, and podcaster based in Boston, MA. Her writing has appeared in Femsplain, The Good Men Project, Pacific Standard, and Talking Points Memo. Chances are good that as you're reading this, she's somewhere laughing.
Amma Marfo

Amma Marfo

Amma Marfo is a writer, speaker, and podcaster based in Boston, MA. Her writing has appeared in Femsplain, The Good Men Project, Pacific Standard, and Talking Points Memo. Chances are good that as you're reading this, she's somewhere laughing.