Samara Joy introduced the world to her smooth sounds on Sunday night at the 65th Annual Grammy Awards, where she won two Grammys, including the highly coveted Best New Artist award.
However, if you scroll through TikTok, you might come across videos of Joy singing. Joy, a Gen Zer, has tapped into the social media app, using her voice and personality to gain hundreds of thousands of followers who flock to pop-up jazz shows to see her perform.
“People come up to me and say, ‘I saw you on Tik Tok, and then I found out you were coming to my city, and I bought tickets right away because of how much your voice impacted me,'” Joy told CBS News before winning two Grammys.
@samarajoysings the moment when I found out I was a two time Grammy nominee 😭😭 captured by my sissss Amber Iman 🥹♥️ #grammys #bestnewartist #jazz #reaction
Joy stated that she must like a song’s melody and lyrics in order to put her own modern spin on it.
“Then we can talk about how to make the song my own,” she explained.
Joy had never been to a jazz club before performing there, but that doesn’t mean she wasn’t exposed to jazz music. Joy comes from a musical family. Her grandparents founded The Savettes of Philadelphia, a gospel group, and her father is a bass player.
Joy began to plant her own seed in the genre in high school, playing in a jazz band for a few months before deciding how far she wanted to take her talent.
“I was singing with them, you know, doing a couple of gigs with them from time to time,” Joy, who grew up in the Bronx, explained. “But when it came time to pick a college, she said, ‘I don’t know where I want to go, but I know I want to keep music in my life.'”
Purchase College, State University of New York, was where she studied jazz. Joy made her debut at the popular jazz club Mezzrow in New York’s West Village shortly after graduating in 2021. It was here that she was introduced to an underground music world she had never imagined herself a part of.
“Samara Joy,” her self-titled new album, was released in 2021. Her sophomore album, “Linger Awhile,” released a year later, earned her two Grammy nominations: Best New Artist and Best Jazz Vocal Album. She found out about her nomination while riding on an Amtrak train.
“I was in a quiet car… silently screaming, silently screaming until I got off the train,” she recalled. “And that was the first time I really felt like my heart was just kind of in my stomach.”
She thanked everyone who had listened to her or supported her in her acceptance speech on Sunday night.
“Everyone here is so inspiring to me, and to be here… just being myself, just being who I was born as, it’s just, I’m so thankful,” she said.
