Calling on Joiah Luminosa

I first met Joiah after an In-Store Session at Mary Go Wild, during the summer of 2019. She had just decided to settled in Amsterdam. Recently, she released the single ‘If You Need Me, Let Me Go’, in collaboration with J-Rar and the music video ‘Not Doing What You Want’, which I fell in love with. She is often involved in many aspects of her art, mixing and mastering her tracks, dancing and acting and that’s why she’s such an interesting creative to keep an eye on.

You came from abroad, travelled a lot and seem to collaborate with people from all sorts of places. What’s special about Amsterdam for you? What inspiration do you draw from this city?
I hadn’t spent too much time in Amsterdam before deciding to move here. The moment I stepped foot onto Dutch soil, I realised there was an energy in this city that is unlike any other. There are so many backgrounds here, different types of professionals, creatives; a lot of variety. It’s very eclectic: not a certain type of scene or a certain type of people. It’s one of the world capitals but it’s like a big village. You might end up stumbling on the same person a few times a day.
On a trip to Guatemala with my dad, I met this Dutch guy, who talked about Amsterdam. It’s going to sound like a romantic story but it’s not! When I eventually came here, we were not seeing each other that much and I just spent a whole week alone, meeting people on the go and discovering the city day by day. I was hooked immediately.

Where did you go first?
I went to museums and parks but spent most of my days in record shops. Zwart Goud, I don’t know how I heard about it. I then went to Rush Hour, Bordello a Parigi, Concerto, Mary Go Wild... Back in Italy, my first raves were with big names... I then moved to Miami, where it was very micro-house oriented; it fit me more. I loved going to the UnMute parties. I met local talents who then became friends like Esteban Marin aka Deku, Ricardo Lund aka Mojeaux at Rakoon Studios and Emilio Mateu aka Pupon, who gave me a lot of insights and shared great music with me. I also had the chance to meet artists in the indie scene like Giacomo Bacigalupo, Sebastian Guerrero, Kevin Villanueva and Cameron Coombs.
However, it wasn’t until Amsterdam that I was buying records and deepening my knowledge in electronic music. Here is a world living because of this music. I had prior knowledge but I needed to dive into sound to be able to navigate in these waves of music.

Your interests lie in many different fields. I’ve listened to your tracks and seen you act in various film projects. You are wakeboarding and longboarding. I also read some of your interviews, articles about music, fashion and history and art reports on Numéro NL. What makes you so prolific? Why is it important for you to touch distinct things?
My job shouldn’t define me, but rather my curiosity, this inner child of mine. My old roommate Seb used to ask ‘Why are you so versatile? Who are you today?’. It sounds like I have a multiple personality disorder; I don’t! I know what I don’t like. I love everything that has to do with art, movement and sound — and learning things.
I come from a small city near Venice, Padua. I spent my first 19 years there. I also grew up doing a lot of sports: windsurfing every summer, snowboarding every winter and eventually becoming a windsurf instructor at 18. I entered the conservatory at 11 doing piano, but it was too much to bear because I was also competing in horseback riding; you need a lot of dedication and time, for a long time. I had to make a choice, sports and then became obsessed with wakeboarding.
I then moved to Miami. My mom is Colombian and an American citizen, my dad Italian so I grew up speaking 3 languages at home: Spanish, Italian and English. Moving to the United States was a big jump spiritually and consciously: it gave me a boost and was a wake-up call as to what I wanted to do in life. That’s when I really tried to make music by myself. I started with Logic Pro X. I was studying Music Business in college. Miami was full of opportunities, open doors and people trying to collaborate with the best, brilliant and innovative minds. Steve Roitstein, in particular, was a big inspiration and motivational professor. He’s a great salsa composer and pianist, known in the South Florida, Caribbean and South American scenes. You couldn’t stop listening to him; he was very enthusiastic about music and a positive person. The conservatory in Italy was very tough and strict — it nearly made me hate music; I was shaking before class. Steve pushed me when I was still very confused about what I wanted to do.
An important encounter was with Yakov Vorobyev, the founder of Mixed In Key, a plugin for key detection, composition and more. This led me to work for the company, compose music for them and help in the development and improvement of the plugins Captain Melody and Captain Chords. So I wasn’t just doing music per se, but it was an interesting way to broaden my perspective.

Can you tell us about your creative process while composing a track or DJing? There seems to be a DIY/alternative feel to it because you collaborate with your friends and together are responsible for a constructed vision.
I try to not have a standardised way of approaching composition. Recently, I got into synthesizers. Then, I bought my own drum machine. I try to have a hybrid attitude: analogue but also digital with some software. I’m a morning person; I’m the opposite of a lot of producers so I tend to make music in the early hours. I have a good night of sleep, I wake up, tend to meditate, give gratitude, do affirmations and try to spread positive vibes. I like to say mantras as well sometimes. If it flows, it flows. In terms of DJing, my selections fluctuate between Chicago house, electro/breaks and minimal. I get my tracks mostly from Bandcamp and online vinyl stores and always ask my friends if they can send me some of their tracks.
Overall, music is a never-ending learning process. Ricardo, the label owner of Future Culture, who did my first release, used to say: ‘No matter what, you’re never going to stop buying books, looking at videos... It’s never going to end. Just go with it’. I was trained classically but I consider myself mainly self-taught. I also sing, which I was insecure about for a long time. People had told me to stick with the piano. Trying to find my sound is the end goal. Now, I know what I want to focus on. Finally, the picture is forming, it’s making sense.
Right now, I’m trying to finalise my reverberating unit. It’s something I want to nurture; I want to teach myself. I also want to focus on doing live sets.

I absolutely love your music videos. Your lyrics often show the dichotomy between relationships and lone self-reflection. Dancing on your own in your room/ chilling in the bathtub/... contrasting a lot with the many movements when in contact with what we could call male energy. For me, it is reminiscent of 90’s-00’s video clips from strong female R’n’B or soul artists. Not necessarily in the message but in this collision between two types of forces, masculine and feminine. ‘Not Doing What You Want’ reminds me a lot of Erykah Badu’s ‘Other side of the game’. Can you tell me what’s underlying?
This happened a lot in my relationships and in general. Patriarchy prevails, especially where I come from in Italy. I think it’s something rooted, that might forever remain. That’s why I wanted to act in Italian at the beginning of the video. Growing up, I always felt I wasn’t adhering to the standardised way of being a woman, or I wasn’t ‘acting like one’. I was doing all these ‘masculine’ sports... My temperament and features were too strong for a lot of men; listen to my spoken voice for example: a lot of people were and still are telling me I sound like a 16-year-old kid. I didn’t embrace it and in relationships, was trying to soften myself. This is not normal. Wherever you are: be you.
Vittoria (Rizzardi Penalosa), the director and screenwriter, knows how to interpret my lyrics and how to create a story out of them. Funny fact, we met horse-riding, back in the day and we never really hung out that much. She’s a force of nature and I admire her a lot; we are both Taurus, I don’t know if you’re into that but... 2 Taurus women together is something powerful! She understands my perception of things. The softness — ‘OK, I do care’ — and the violence — ‘No, I don’t like what you said...’

I also believe there’s not enough sisterhood, not enough conjunction and appreciation among us women; always that slight competition

Your creative endeavours appear deeply tangled with a certain posture towards mental health or giving more space to female narratives, for example with the Artemisia Collective. How would you describe the importance those topics have for you, and how do they influence your art?
Mental health isn’t tackled enough. I try to be super open about it, especially living in individualistic societies where it’s all about work and status. I speak about those topics to spread the message and raise awareness. It’s not only about me and that’s why I partake in different projects, collaborate and uplift other people’s creative journeys. You have to give back.
I also believe there’s not enough sisterhood, not enough conjunction and appreciation among us women; always that slight competition. During the pandemic, I had a wake-up call and decided to form a collective that addresses these themes. Thanks to Romane Meisonnier, Thayna Winnubst and Ana Garrido, Artemisia took form. Ines Jima and Anastasia Gergalova recently joined. It is a platform sharing stories of women who are part of the sports and arts industries: how it is to be a woman in their field, what are the challenges they’re facing and what they’ve learned.
Artemisia Gentileschi is the first woman to get a degree from the Accademia delle Arti del Disegno in Florence during the Baroque period. She grew up in a Roman family of artists and craftsmen. Her talent for painting impelled her father Orazio to hire a master for her, Tassi, who sexually abused her. He was convicted for ‘damaged property’ but she left the city and in Florence, her career boomed, meeting the most renowned figures of her time, such as Michelangelo Buonarroti and Galileo Galilei.
I am not interested in awards or ego, but in people who have a light worth of sharing, people who do their thing because of their need to do it. It has to be wholesome, to feed the soul. I kept contact with a lot of women I met throughout my life and I try to maintain that. What I learned is to maintain the connection and come together. I’m trying to start a podcast sharing more in-depth topics about feminism.

What new projects are coming up?
You’ll know when it’s out. I prefer not to talk too much but demonstrate. Keeping it wholesome and genuine, always.