Joy Crookes returns today with a breathtakingly candid new single ‘Pass The Salt’ featuring Californian rapper and songwriter Vince Staples.
Humorous and provocative in equal measure, ‘Pass The Salt’ is the first single in a new era of music that continues to establish Joy as one of the UK’s most outstanding vocalists and gifted songwriters – a once-in-a-generation artist.
The demanding bass of ‘Pass The Salt’ is a bitingly glorious dismissal of a person who tried to cross Joy and features one of rap’s most gifted and respected performers, Vince Staples. Speaking on the track, Joy explains: “Pass the Salt is about a woman I know vaguely, who is nothing short of an arsehole, who got jealous and started spreading rumours about me. The song is basically me squaring up (musically) and being like ok bitch if u have something to say come say it to my face.”
Listen to ‘Pass The Salt’ on F1 Tracks.
Joy hasn’t been afraid to take her time before returning to the spotlight – she has taken stock over the past three years and returned with a meaningful arsenal of music, determined not to lose the spirit that had so informed her debut album; the deeply intimate and voraciously vibrant Skin in 2021.
The album traversed familial love, generational trauma, breakups, and politics from the perspective of a young South London woman. As witty as it was wounded, Joy’s attention to lyrical detail and inherent gift for melody was immediately apparent; here was an artist that embodied the mercurial capabilities of those before her – Nina Simone, Amy Winehouse, Nick Drake, Sarah Vaughan, Mick Jones – while remaining utterly singular in her style.
Skin was both a commercial and critical success, landing at #5 on the UK Official Charts and receiving BRIT nominations, a Mercury Prize nod and rave reviews from the Guardian and the NME, among others. Skin also attracted a fiercely loyal fanbase and Joy sold out her first UK tour in just hours, as well clocking up millions and millions of streams, working with brands including Lexus and adidas, performing at major festivals and appearing on Late Night with Seth Meyers, The Late Late Show with James Corden and joined Ed Sheeran onstage during Jools Holland’s Hootenanny.
