Finding My Favorite
My Journey to Joony’s “Paper”
by Nathan Russell
January 17th, 2022
Theres something seriously infectious about the subtlety of a voice like Joony.
My familiarity with this name starts with his patchy yet syrupy sweet embellishments on Brent Faiyaz’s Paper Soldier, an unofficially released song tweeted out in a Dropbox folder in early February by Faiyaz himself (the song was accompanied by two others in the folder including Circles, later paired with this video on YouTube).
Days after this mysterious faux drop from Faiyaz, Joony dropped a 24 minute project titled Silent Battles. The charming, molasses-like drip of his vocals are clearly on display again on one of the final cuts from this project, Between Us.
Its Joony’s Proud of U EP, however, where I have found the song that I believe combines all of my favorite features of the Maryland artist. The eerily scattered pitch shifts of the backing vocals competing with the trudging yet succinct drum loop lay the foundation for Joony to deliver in a way he seems to know best: effortlessly. The simplistic, poetic delivery of the hook, where he writes “these just bands, this can’t save ya” with his voice trailing off into the distance seemingly after every bar make this one of his most heartfelt offerings in the brief time I have known this DMV creative.
More on Joony:
21 years old
from Silver Spring, Maryland
has been releasing music for 8 years