In Her Juneteenth Release “Yell Joy,” Joyelle Nicole Johnson Just Wants to Talk

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YELL JOY, the new comedy album from Joyelle Nicole Johnson is now available. You can see Joyelle’s stand-up set on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon from May 5, 2021 here.

If you happen to enjoy Joyelle Nicole Johnson’s new album, Yell Joy (available June 19th on Blonde Medicine Records), you have her hard drive’s limited capacity to thank.

It was her trove of pre-pandemic recordings that composed this four-volume record, allowing her to avoid the machinations of pandemic-era album and special logistics. She recognizes how lucky she was to get to work this way, sharing:

I know friends that actually recorded albums and even specials during the pandemic…it’s stressful enough to record an album or a special, but to add that people might get sick, too? It’s a crazy feeling. So I’m blessed that I did not have to venture into that.

“I say that my albums are autobiographical stories of my observations that I have relayed to people and made them laugh,” she said when asked how she’d describe her comedy to someone who’d never heard her before. “I’m a storyteller, everything that I talk about is true – comedy is truth meets exaggeration. It’s storytime with Joyelle!” But the resulting album doesn’t feel dated or out of place after the whirlwind of the last sixteen months – in fact, Johnson feels it’s well positioned to provide some comfort and laughter at a time where our reality is shifting once again. “I want people to be comfortable, that’s my vibe. I want you to feel like you’re being hugged, with a smile!”

It should be noted, however, that her comfortable and conversational style shouldn’t be confused for non-confrontational; in addition to using the mic to share stories about dating and co-habitating with strangers, she is equally passionate about using the literal stage to offer commentary on race and reproductive rights. In fact, her dedication to conversations about race is conveyed in her chosen release date for Yell Joy: Juneteenth (June 19th). The holiday, established to commemorate the date that enslaved people in Texas finally learned of their freedom via the Emancipation Proclamation, has stoked conversational fires across the country in the last two years. And for Johnson, that’s a step in the right direction.

“Things like Juneteenth or the Tulsa Massacre […] are things that just need to be taught so you can understand where we are, moving forward into the future. We can acknowledge that past, without it being something negative,” she shared when asked why it was so meaningful for the album to drop on the holiday:

If you don’t talk about things you can’t move past them. I’m a huge therapy stan: I got an individual therapist and a couples’ therapist, so I’m in therapy twice a week; and when you can talk about stuff, that’s how you can heal. And we’re not doing any healing for the country.

I want people to talk about it more. And to release a comedy album on that day is a representation of that yin and yang for me. I’m a very dichotomy based human, where I can always see the good and the bad, [and] balance the scales. And for me, comedy released on Juneteenth is comfortable!
She feels similarly about finding and creating comfort in conversations about abortion, the topic of a track on the album. As a vocal supporter and partner with the Abortion Access Front, it is her goal “to make every woman who has had an abortion, not feel ashamed about it.” While these conversations can get heated or even feel dangerous, Johnson counts on her approachable and story-based style to bring these issues to life through their impact on her. For her, the stories are essential to the connection – and above all, she makes sure that they’re funny.

“My favorite piece of advice I got when I was starting out: if you’re talking to somebody in a conversation, and you’re making them laugh, write it down. That’s how I got started in comedy: something crazy would happen to me and I’d be on the phone telling my cousins, and they’d be crying laughing – I was like ‘Oh! That could translate to the stage!’”

That’s ultimately what Johnson hopes all listeners, but Black women in particular, feel when they listen to the album: the same happiness and empowerment they’d get from a conversation with a friend – and empowerment that encourages them to use their own voices to tell their own stories. She laughed as she recalled an observation from her therapist: “It’s ironic that this is our work, and also the job that you chose.” And with Yell Joy, you’ll see that the work she’s doing is paying off…and will pay off for its listeners as well.

Yell Joy will be available on Juneteenth wherever albums are available – and you’ll be able to catch her live opening for Hasan Minhaj on select dates of his “The King’s Jester” Tour. For a full listing of her tour dates, head to her website.

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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.