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2002 March 19: BET

Wodie Gone Tales, Vol. 4: Joi To The World

By Jon Caramanica

It's her turn, and it's about time. Joi Gilliam-Gipp has been in the wings for far too long, appreciated by only a few and understood by even fewer. Her new album, Star Kitty's Revenge, may not give away too many clues about the woman contained within, but it's an able blueprint to some of her more, um, unconventional predilections. Below, 11 things you may not know, but you certainly need to.

• Joi is the daughter of Joe Gilliam, one of the first black quarterbacks to play in the NFL. A Pittsburgh Steeler for the majority of his career, Gilliam had fallen on hard times after his departure from the league. Homeless for a spell and addicted to drugs for longer, his fall from grace also included the pawning of his two Super Bowl rings. In the two years prior to his death in 2000, though, Gilliam was sober and appeared well on the way to social recovery, even starting a youth football camp.
• Joi's first album, The Pendulum Vibe , was neo-soul before there was a movement to claim her. It was an adventurous excursion into avant black music that wondered what the sound of postmodern bohemian love was.
• Like any artist of outstanding vision, Joi has been jerked over by a major label. Her second album, Amoeba Cleansing Syndrome , took her signature sound into ever more bizarre territory. Naturally, her label didn't want to take the trip out there with her, and shelved the album just weeks before its intended release (though the enterprising listener can still find MP3s of the album drifting in cyberspace).
• Joi's done a guest turn with Curtis Mayfield. Nuff said.
• On the cover of the most recent issue of Oneworld magazine, Joi is being flattened against a very lucky wall by an enthusiastic Big Gipp of the Goodie Mob, her husband. The accompanying photo spread -- an elaborate, double-digit-page affair -- shows the couple in varying states of repose.
• In the very same Oneworld article, Joi and Gipp 'fess to being sometime participants in Atlanta's Velvet Underground, a loose collection of sexually adventurous folks of color who are prone to experimenting with the bawdier side of sexuality. Sure, they say they're not serious, but if you believe half the things they allude to, you'll be left a very lusty puppy.
• Joi's new album, Star Kitty's Revenge , is sticky. Now that she's firmly down with the Dungeon, her sound is even more alluring and adventurous than before. It's music for socially-aware strip clubs, head music about the body.
• This is what Joi says to a dismissed ex on "Get On": "I want a vision of me making love inside of your head/But not to you, to someone else with my legs behind my head/My love won't wet him/But my legs will squeeze him tight and just wait/You think I'm done, I'll make you just watch me over and over and over and over again." Never has breaking up hurt so good.
• Despite the clear lust that permeates Star Kitty's Revenge, Joi closes out the record with a spoken word outro delivered by her daughter, Keypsiia. Family trumps all.
• If you're not down, she'll spank you.
• If you're down, she'll spank you.