Ultimate, Lifelong Idol of All Time: JoJo
How do I begin to explain Joanna Levesque? I still remember the first time I heard/saw her, flicking through the music channels in 2004 – that iconic video for Leave (Get Out) came on and I was sold for life. At that time, to me, she was just super cool – I had no CONCEPT of what she was doing with her voice and how special it was. She was also incredibly aspirational and life affirming. That super cool girl on the telly had a record deal and she’s around my age – that meant I could have a record deal (and I was definitely on the right track, with my sub-par vocal abilities, doing the occasional talent competition in holiday parks in and around Skegness). The older I get, the more and more astounded I am that a twelve year old did THAT. As much as I believe that anybody can learn to sing, I listen to that first album and I know that some people are just that talented. I don’t need to convince you. Let’s just love on JoJo for a few paragraphs.
Listen to the all the riffs and ad-libs in Baby It’s You (find the original version on youtube, it’s not on streaming platforms – if you don’t know why, wowowow do a bit of a dig). HOW varied they are and how intricate some of them are. When it comes to riffs, I think the majority of us have a stash of regular go-tos that we feel safe executing and, luckily, the music around us can often disguise the fact that we’re actually doing the same few in rotation; so much so that we don’t even realise it. I don’t get that listening to JoJo. She is an international library. If you want to learn creative, musically complex riffs that aren’t overdone and will give you a proper vocal workout, go straight to her. She doesn’t seem committed to any particular vowel, she can do runs up the scale as well as she does down, she’s picking all kinds of notes to throw in and doing them in all different registers and in all kinds of colours. To me, she seems totally free and can do whatever she wants.
I think it’s really fortunate that she seems to have this gift for riffs, considering the genre of music she sings and is obviously so inspired by. There’s definitely a temptation for young, white girls singing Soul and RnB to try and emulate that sound by going really sobby and/or twanging as hard as they can. JoJo having this ability from a really young age has meant that she hasn’t had to rely so much on the tone of her voice to sound authentic (not saying all white vocalists who have a particularly sobby or twangy sound are putting it on, or that that’s necessarily a bad thing). Being able to riff and run the way she does is definitive enough for the style of music she sings and places her firmly in that genre, so she’s never needed to overcompensate with her timbre/sound. Her naturally bright, metallic tone lends itself far more seamlessly to pop (which she obviously nails as well) but it doesn’t even matter and nobody cares and we can all enjoy her natural, personal sound because her stylistic agility pushes her far enough into Soul and RnB that she has all this space to do the REAL stuff. The emotional stuff. And this is the stuff that has a knock on effect and makes the technical stuff even MORE impressive.
There’s no wild trick for getting good at singing. There’s definitely information that can accelerate the process, but it really is just practicing and working your muscles and ears and brain. Watching JoJo’s Instagram lives at the beginning of lockdown gave SUCH an insight on how she works. She just loves it and does it all the time. She had no issue turning on her camera, trying new things and letting people hear whatever came out; it was all so relaxed – I absolutely believe she would be doing the same thing if nobody was watching her. For a singer who sounds so polished and advanced, there’s no pretension about her. She is truly at one with her voice (who’s pretentious now?!).
As long as the internet is obsessed with normalising things at the minute, I’m asking that we normalise asking famous singers about their technique in interviews. I would loooooove to know how JoJo approaches singing and how conscious she is of the sound she’s producing. But I don’t, so I have to guess and I am guessing that she is a pure primal sounds gal. From everything I know about singing, I cannot understand how JoJo has sustained such consistent, top tier performances for so long unless she’s putting her whole heart and soul into it every. time. she. sings. And I believe that her crispness, control and creativity simply comes from day-to-day vocal play and having fun trying new things. I don’t think she could have re-recorded the first half of her entire career’s work to the standard that she did without being able to find new joy and meaning in everything she sings. When JoJo talks about her career and about other singers, she comes across so humble that it’s obvious she just loves music. I really don’t think she’s thinking about how she sings or analysing it too much and there’s so much freedom in that. When it comes to singing, having little to no inhibition is where you want to be, because it’s all the thinking and anxiety that gets in the way of your body doing what it automatically does (barring medical conditions etc.) Over sixteen years, I haven’t noticed any periods of deviation from JoJo. She only gets better. I genuinely think that’s because there’s no noise in her head when she sings. She’s cracked it. She just sings.