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At 34, singer JoJo embraces youthful joy
While some kids were learning their multiplication tables and crushing on boys at recess, by age 12, Joanna “JoJo” Levesque was busy launching an impressive music career.
I knew Levesque as one of the leads in the campy, 2006 mermaid movie “Aquamarine.” (Her memories of being on set included chowing down on turkey toasties with co-stars Emma Roberts and Sarah Paxton.) Others may recognize her as JoJo, the young chart-topping sensation who released her debut self-titled album at only 13 years old.
Levesque was a determined pop and R&B artist who signed her first record deal with Blackground Records. Her single “Leave (Get Out)” soared in popularity, making her the youngest solo artist to reach number one on the Billboard Top 40.
Her memoir “Over the Influence” published last year, and it chronicles Levesque’s early rise to fame, her decade-long musical stalemate during a lawsuit with her label, and her parents’ battles with addiction as well as her own.
Levesque released her first EP “NGL” as an independent artist in January, navigating self-discovery and imperfection. The album allowed her to finally create the music she wanted to make.
She spent some of her childhood and early adulthood in Foxborough, Boston and New Hampshire. Levesque returns to Massachusetts to play Roadrunner on Wednesday, March 26 as part of her “Too Much to Say” Tour.
“My favorite part about tour is connecting with each audience, and every human being brings something different and can literally change the atmosphere of a room,” she said. “We're really powerful in that way.”
I hopped on a Zoom call with Levesque, 34, in between rehearsals to chat about her memoir, learning how to be a kid as an adult and growing up in the Bay State.
This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.
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Maddie Browning: You released your latest EP in January. What did it feel like to send that work out into the world? What have the responses been so far?
Joanna Levesque: It felt liberating. This is my first official release as an independent artist, and there was so much time and thought and back and forth that went into it. It felt right to not keep these songs in the notes section of my phone, but to share them with people because that's one of my favorite parts of getting to do what I do — making things and then hoping that they connect with whoever they're meant to connect with. So the response has been really beautiful from my fans and even from people who maybe weren't fans — didn't care, didn't know who I was — and that's also always surprising and nice. It's cool to keep moving forward and trying new things.
I love the vulnerability and emotional depth on “Porcelain Reimagined.” How did that song come to you and what does it represent?
So me and one of my favorite collaborators, Lil’ Eddie, we've been writing together since I was a teenager, and that was one of the first songs that we wrote when we got back together to start writing for this [EP]. I was just in the booth and then Neff-U, Theron Feemster, who's this incredible producer who's on a lot of the songs on “NGL,” he and some other amazing musicians were in the live room, and “Porcelain” started as a jam and a stream of consciousness.
I had just been thinking a lot about how I felt broken for so much of my 20s, and I just didn't know how I could see my way out of the darkness that I felt. In embracing that darkness, I think that was my way through. And that's what “Porcelain” is about, allowing yourself to be a mess, and look at yourself in the mirror and say, “You will feel differently,” and “Hold on,” and allow yourself to break and then transform into something new.
How did singing “Porcelain” with the One-Day Choir impact your relationship with the song?
(One-Day Choir is a program organized by the Los Angeles-based A Cappella Academy that hosts one-day choirs where strangers gather, learn vocal parts and sing together. The choir performed “Porcelain” in seven-part harmony at Gymnopedie in Brooklyn.)
That was so cool because I had never had a group of people breaking down my lyrics like that. We did this exercise where people were able to say what the song meant to them and how it made them feel, and that was such a treat for me as a writer. And then to hear all these human voices where we had also shared what our weeks or months had been like, things that were great in our lives and things that were challenging in our lives. People were being vulnerable in that space. And then we sang the song together and we all learned our parts and it was so awesome. I think it changed my relationship with it because sometimes you feel like you're just writing a little song and you don't know the impact it could have on people. And I felt like that was a really beautiful human exchange of all of our voices coming together.
In “Over the Influence,” you talk about Foxborough as one of the only places that felt like a steady home during your early childhood. What's your connection to the town now?
That's still my home. That's where I go for holidays, so that's the closest thing to home I've ever known. I'm a New England girl through and through. I have the state of Massachusetts tattooed on my rib. I have “live free or die” on my neck for Nashua, New Hampshire. I'm a New England girl till I die. For Christmas, I come home to my aunt and uncle in Foxborough, and I have family scattered all throughout Massachusetts. So that's it for me. Got my four-leaf clover here [on my finger] for South Boston where I still have a place.
Your first apartment on your own was in Boston. What did those first few months feel like?
It felt like freedom. I loved being in close proximity to Berklee, even though Southie isn't super close, I still walked. I loved going to Newbury Street. I wish I was more in touch with what's going on right now in Boston. I love the city so much. It was cool to have my musician friends at Berklee and to feel like I was a part of a little community and causing a ruckus.
You also write in the memoir that you felt inconvenienced by your youth. Can you talk more about that?
Yeah, I just wanted to work. I just always wanted to be able to get out there, and I was told I had to go to school or I had to finish my homework or whatever and I was like, “I already know what I want to do for the rest of my life, so can we just get to that?” So I was always so eager to grow up. And when people ask, “What is something you would want to tell your younger self?” Not that I would have listened or understood, but you know, it's “Don't be in a rush to grow up because you have the rest of your life to be a grown up, and the things that you think are burdensome will look like nothing when you're older.” So inconvenienced just in the fact that I was not pushed into this. I always wanted to perform and be in this life that I'm still blessed to live.
In writing your memoir, you parsed through your teenage and early adulthood journals. What was that experience like?
That was a trip to say the least. I got to see, not only my handwriting evolved, but my neuroses evolved and some patterns that kept recurring that I wasn't able to see until later and with hindsight, and also some things that I have worked through that I can celebrate that there's been evolution and growth, and then some things that were seeds of doubt and insecurity about my looks or my abilities or my cachet or anything like that or even feeling like, “When will it be enough?” or “What am I looking for as far as a sense of home or a sense of family or a sense of partnership?”
It was so interesting to see all those things, and I'm so grateful. I think it was my uncle, Scott, who's an incredible writer in my family, and he encouraged me to start keeping a journal when I was like 14, and I was on the road. And I'm really grateful that I actually listened because I didn't always listen. To be able to have those was very helpful in writing the book.
In looking back through your life story so far, were there any particular lessons that stood out or things you learned from your younger self?
Our sense of self is so fragile when we're kids and teenagers and younger people, and I just have a lot of compassion for my younger self where I used to be much harder on myself. I still hold myself to a high standard, but I'm less painfully critical or hard on myself and just see that my sense of self was very impacted by all the different opinions and things at play behind the scenes because I was a part of an industry and because I was a part of a family system where there was addiction and instability.
So that's what the title “Over the Influence” is about, saying, “Okay. I've had some incredibly fortunate, phenomenal experiences, and I've also had some things that were really challenging for me to be able to see my way out of or a new way forward and I want to leave anything of feeling less than.” Because that is something that I felt a lot. I felt a sense of guilt for even having opportunities that maybe other people in my family didn't and even just at certain points feeling bad for myself in a lawsuit that I couldn't get out of and things like that. So it was about leaving those things squarely in the past and choosing to frame my life and the next chapter in a different way.
Are there any ways that you're now fostering your inner child?
That's a great question. I'm trying to bring more playfulness into it because like that first question that you asked, that I was inconvenienced by my youth, I didn't even want to play. I was like, “I want to work. I want people to know that I'm serious about this.” And now I'm playing more, I'm getting more in my body. Yoga feels like play to me. Dancing feels like play to me. Like I'm just putting myself in positions to be a beginner at things and to literally fall on my face, to not feel totally comfortable. So I would say play in those ways and just try not to take things so seriously because I took things extremely seriously most of my life and I don't think that's the point.
I think I'm supposed to have more fun.
What are your hopes for the next few years in your career?
My hopes for the next few years are really about continuing the process of shedding any conditioning that isn't authentic to me and getting out of the way of connecting to the truth of whatever lyrics I'm singing and being present. I really, really want to bring my full self and presence to whatever situation I'm in. I want to continue to grow as a live performer, as a writer. And I'd love to be a part of other artists' careers and bring my experience and my perspective to help them in any way that I can, whether that's bringing someone onto my label, Clover Music, or just being in some type of mentor position.
And I want to continue to explore and have fun in other genres. It's been such a joy to perform with Jon Batiste and do more jazz standards. There's just so many different types of music that light me up that I want to explore and have fun with and collaborate and learn and grow.
