REDISCOVERING JOY

Four years since her acclaimed debut album Skin established her as one of the UK's most promising rising talents, south London native Joy Crookes returns after a prolonged mental health battle to continue her story with resilient new record Juniper

- HOLLIE GERAGHTY

JOY CROOKES IS FIRED UP.

POUNDING THE PAVEMENTS of her south London neighbourhood, an unusually moody June sky looms over the singer when she arrives on Zoom 20 minutes later than our scheduled interview time. "I am so sorry," she says, visibly rattled. "Basically, an absolute fucking madness happened at the nail shop." Amid breathless strides while attempting to roll a cigarette on the go, she recounts how a verbal scuffle broke out in the salon which escalated to the point where she was caught in the crossfire of nail products. "I was like, "This is gonna fucking sound made-up when I get on the phone and apologise!""

Despite her less-than-zen start to the morning, this is exactly how I would expect Crookes to pick up the phone: out and about in the chaos of the capital city that has always been a larger-than-life character in her soulful contemplations on love, identity and politics told through the prism of her inner-city upbringing. She sang about the strange comfort of anonymity on ‘London Mine’, celebrated immigrant communities on ‘19th Floor’ and paid tribute to a Brixton-born love story on ‘When You Were Mine’. When she released her debut album Skin in the autumn of 2021, London was the pulse that gave the record its cosmopolitan vibrancy. It established the singer-songwriter as one of the most exciting new British artists of her generation. She was nominated for the BRITs’ Rising Star Award in 2020 — which had previously gone to the likes of Adele, Jorja Smith and Sam Fender - and was placed fourth in the BBC’s Sound of 2020. Two years later, she was nominated for Album of the Year at the Mercury Prize, while her wise-beyond-her-years perspective and raw vocal timbre earnt her comparisons to music icons like Amy Winehouse and Lauryn Hill.