Joji is a musician and auteur: a pop star for the 21st century. He has a total vision for his work, not just in terms of writing and producing his music, but the single and album artwork, the videos, merch, and live performances as well. It’s a fully realized world that his fans can inhabit and explore—and see themselves in. “My music is not biographical,” he says, but even still, the deep, heavily shaded emotions in his songs are genuine and they speak to anyone who has ever felt stuck on the outside looking in, who knows what it means to not belong.
After establishing himself as a singular creative force with his 2017 EP In Tongues and first full-length album BALLADS1, released the following year, Joji returns in 2020 with NECTAR, a project he describes as having “a sense of urgency but calm.” Because of its evocatively smeared quality, Joji’s work doesn’t suggest a rule-heavy process, but he does have one requirement for his music: “When I start a song I have to imagine visuals with it, or it’s not right for me.” Whether you’re talking about the accompanying music video or the images that play across your brain as you listen to a song, you can’t talk about Joji without talking about moving pictures.
In 2019, the Japan-born Joji sold-out his North America tour within minutes and performed at some of the most coveted festivals across the world, including Reading & Leeds in the UK and Lollapalooza. As Joji surpasses 5 billion global streams, 2020 is proving to be his biggest year to date.
