Joyce Wrice’s Overgrown is a taste of R&B’s past and future

Like most aspiring millennial singers and musicians, Joyce Wrice found an outlet for her talent on Youtube by releasing covers of her favorite songs. Her ukulele-assisted covers of hits by Brandy, Teedra Moses, Janet Jackson, Aaliyah showed her love and appreciation for the particular sound of R&B produced by her predecessors that would later influence her discography. Couple years later, the San Diego native would find herself in L.A. singing on the hooks of songs with rappers like Dom Kennedy and Jay Prince, and releasing reworkings of 90s classics on Soundcloud. Fast forward to 2021 and Joyce Wrice has released her debut album, Overgrown, which weaves the flavor of hip-hop and classic R&B to produce a sound and project that’s entirely her own.

Like the name suggests, Overgrown is an album about growing through the many facets of love and life. Though Wrice takes the familiar route of centering her R&B debut around relationships, she does more than just wait around for incompetent lovers. On the first track “Chandler”, she sings “Let’s talk about all of the things // that women gotta endure just to get some love”, shining light on the unnecessary labor women exert in their quest for romance. She exercises her confidence and leaves behind a disappointing lover in the “So Sick”, telling us that she “could havе whatever I want, so I'm choosing.” Under the covers of this silky romantic debut are timeless themes of self-empowerment that can serve just about any demographic that listens. The sonic journey through womanhood is best captured on the album’s title track, which doubles as the album’s outro. The contemplative track is one that showcases her spirituality as she sings “You will be scared, unprepared sometimes // and don't you choose to lose your faith.” Wrice, a Japanese-American, grew up practising Buddhism and wanted this track to be one that showcased her fears and insecurities to her fanbase. She signals her heritage with the Japanese remix of “That’s On You” with fellow Japanese-American Umi.

What makes Overgrown special is not just its underlying feminist and faith musings but its heralding to multiple eras of music. Joyce Wrice joins the likes of her counterparts Victoria Monet and VanJess in rebirthing the glory days of R&B when the use of instrumentation carried a song. With the use of strings, bass and percussion, the intro of “Chandler” blooms in a beautiful 70s fashion and an electric guitar opens standout track “Addicted”. Kicking drums lay the foundation for songs like “Falling in Love featuring Lucky Daye and  “So Sick”, which samples the 90s classic “They Don’t Know” by Jon B.

The album sonically and thematically draws from the 90s and 2000s era when R&B was in matrimony with hip-hop. Joyce Wrice cites her influences as Missy Elliot, Mariah Carey, and Aaliyah, all women who have seamlessly blended hip-hop and R&B in their music. Her recent music videos have implemented choreography, hailing back to a time where the singers danced along while the rappers did their thing. The video for “So So Sick” slightly references some of the choreography from Ashanti’s 2002 song “Happy.”

For this album, Wrice wanted to bring R&B and rap together like Mariah Carey did when she invited Wu-Tang Clan’s Ol’ Dirty Bastard to remix “Fantasy” in 1995 or the several duets between Ashanti and Ja Rule in the early 2000s or even the more recent “Aston Martin Music” with Rick Ross, Drake and Chrissette Michele in 2010. She does her own rapper-singer pairings with the single “On One” featuring Freddie Gibbs, and “Westside Gunn’s Interlude.” Haitian producer Kaytranada makes a lovely appearance on one of the album’s three interludes, further adding to the project’s nostalgic sound.

Overgrown is the L.A. native’s way of letting us know she’s here to stay. She sings about the beauty and fleeting nature of romance coupled with the bravery of walking away from something that doesn’t serve you. It’s carefree and careful. With the help of the album’s executive producer, D’Mile who she likens to Quincy Jones, Joyce Wrice created a project that is both fresh and nostalgic. Many are worried about the trajectory of R&B in this current fast-paced music industry. Wrice’s debut teaches us that the way we can move R&B forward is to simply look back.