Joy Ike

You haven’t heard of Joy Ike yet, but you will. She’s just what the industry is looking for: an artist who can take small ideas and limited resources, and spread them out to make something that sounds unique, even without the pretentious production design. Her debut solo album, Good Morning, makes a lot of promises, on some of which it delivers—namely, a jazzy canvas splattered with random orchestration and soulful vocals. While its strengths are occasionally marred by a weak hook or a trite lyric, Ike is honest and passionate through and through, and make no mistake, she’s hit a goldmine of great musical ideas.

The notable flaw on Good Morning is a sense of déjà vu, not all the time, but certainly with song titles and intros. What sounds like a potentially silly track (for instance, “Warriors Get Your Gear On”) turns into a fabulous romp with soaring lyricism, but a better title or more attention-getting intro would’ve been nice considering that so many listeners can be impatient, and might miss out on a great album from the tendency to skip songs that don’t give their speakers the old “WHAM! BAM!” right out of the chute.

Ike does resort to using conventional imagery and technique from time to time, often just as her artistic vision seems ready to take off. The disappointment of a great idea spoiled by less-than-lovely execution isn’t frequent, but the brilliant bits throughout certainly make the low points seem all the more disappointing considering how close to perfect much of this material comes. There’s a bit of a hodgepodge in quality, which makes Ike’s work best in doses: to wit, singles rather than an entire record of hits; still, for a debut, there’s a lot to love, and I suspect that future efforts will be even more challenging and delightful.

“Strongman” is something of a toned down anthem, hip-hop flavored and unabashedly gospel focused. Ike’s vocals aren’t at their most impressive here, but the best comes further down the tracklist, so it’s not as if she can’t impress; the hook is strong and the beat is delightfully subtle. The good outweighs the mediocre. It’s one of the album’s better tracks and has been available for download from Ike’s MySpace for some time now.

On the other side of the coin, we have “Jacob and Esau”—a desperate attempt to sound youthful and vibrant, which falls flat because it values its rhythmic progression and playful tone above establishing a memorable hook and because its lyrics (while not shoddy by any stretch of the imagination) aren’t as relevant as on her other compositions. It’s pop music; therefore, it can’t afford to lose focus without risking its credibility. Eventually (and unfortunately), this one does warrant a skip.

Where does that leave the rest of the album? The music speaks for itself, and in this case, what we hear is pretty comforting. A majority of this material falls along the lines of Corinne Bailey Rae’s debut, and is such a breath of fresh air in the sickeningly crowded Adult Contemporary scene—derivative, certainly, but with a vibrancy that doesn’t feel forced or silly. When Rae told us to “put your records on,” we weren’t even concerned with whether or not she was peddling stolen goods, as we were too busy tapping those toes and snapping those fingers, and (dare I say it?) bobbing our heads. Ike’s music works the same way: style and poise, but with a promising undercurrent of substance that, while not fully developed, is certainly better than the competition.

To hit all the highlights would take too long, as much of Good Morning is consistently engaging. “City Lights” is a sensitive, well-executed rumination on frailty and endurance, and it’s Ike’s (and the listener’s) best moment: when a rising artist, testing her own limits and searching for her voice, allows the music to come together in an honest way and an indescribable spell is cast over the audience. It’s real, it’s powerful, and adjectives or reviews don’t do it justice. Ideas like these can cement her status in the continually crowded market: fragile piano, harsh strings, swaggering percussion, firm but soothing vocals. Nice work, Joy. If we see more of this in the future, she’s bound to become a household name.

Another winner is “Remember,” a reflection on human imperfection in a shallow, picture-perfect society. It works for much the same reason as “City Lights”: it’s frank, honest, and delicate. Ike hasn’t pulled together an entire album full of like hits, but she’s made one of the biggest statements of 2008: an artist is being born while we sit in our cars, or stoop over our laptops, or sit in candlelight with our headphones on. An artist is coming to the forefront who wants to make an impact so deeply that it outstrips her own faults and wins our hearts, if not quite our minds. In a few years’ time, with some more experience under her belt, and a confidence that can only be gained by trying and failing ten or fifty or a hundred times, Joy Ike will be just what she wants to be, and that’s a day worth waiting for.

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