‘In My Room’ With Joy Oladokun

Joy Oladokun performs a selection of songs from her newly released album In Defense of My Own Happiness in the latest installment of In My Room.

“I’m not currently in my room; I am in my studio — but I am in my house,” the Nashville singer-songwriter says. “I can’t turn the camera around, but it is very much modeled after my childhood bedroom. It’s very much Neverland energy.”

Seated on a couch with her acoustic guitar, Oladukun kicks off the session with the uplifting “If You Got a Problem.” Oladokun, a self-described “empath with a short-attention span,” wrote it for her girlfriend, who was going through a tough time. She followed that with “Sunday,” which touches on her experiences of being queer in places where that wasn’t affirmed.

She then performs “I See America,” which was written during the George Floyd protests and unpacks the complicated tension between American ideals and reality. “I saw god out on the block today, he was darker than the preachers say,” she begins. Oladokun wraps up her performance with “Jordan,” a track that closes In Defense of My Own Happiness and stresses the need to create your own “promised land” when you’ve been cast out of other spaces.

In Defense of My Own Happiness was released June 4th and includes all the songs from this performance as well as the Maren Morris collaboration “Bigger Man,” “Breathe Again,” and “Look Up.” Oladokun is set to play several festivals later this year, including Lollapalooza on July 29th and Bonnaroo on September 2nd.

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