By Rachel Kennedy
JoJo proves it’s never too little, too late to make a comeback.
Mark Sunday, Dec. 6 down in your dairy as the night a pop icon was in a 5-mile vicinity of you. That’s right. Ladies and gentlemen, JoJo is making a comeback to the music business, and Dallas got a sneak peak.
As part of her “I Am JoJo” club tour, the artist performed at Club Dada in Deep Ellum. The club, with its grungy interior, had a vibe similar to SMU favorite, Homebar. The exposed brick walls and street art accents were a perfect setting for the artsy performer.
Aaron Camper, a singer-songwriter from Maryland who’s toured with Justin Timberlake and Stevie Wonder, opened for JoJo. He was energetic and a joy to watch. To keep the audience guessing, Camper not only played some of his original songs, like “Hypnotizing,” but he also covered songs by popular artists like Drake, Taylor Swift and Wiz Khalifa.
Camper’s song mix was just as eclectic as the audience. Ages varied from a 6-year-old girl to a 30-year-old man who came for his birthday. No matter their age or gender, every person in attendance was a die-hard JoJo fan.
JoJo, whose last album was released in 2006, has recently come back on the radar as she prepares to release her much-anticipated third album in 2016. No release date has been given for the album and neither has an official name. However, JoJo is making sure to give fans a little taste of what’s to come.
She’s released three singles from her upcoming album, all of which she performed at her Dallas concert. She ended with the three new songs (“Save My Soul,” “When Love Hurts” and “Say Love”), with every audience member singing along.
The re-emerging popstar made sure to play her old stuff too. She opened with “Baby It’s You” and included other popular jams like “Leave (Get Out)” and “Too Little, Too Late.”
The singer showed off her vocals as one of the few artists who is just as good live as they are on the radio. Her hiatus was spent making mix tapes, but she must have also done some vocal exercises because she never missed a note.
JoJo made sure to interact with the audience and even sang happy birthday to a select few who called out to her on stage. The whole time she was cracking jokes about how little she knew about love when she first started recording love songs at age 12 and the guys who inspired some of her pieces.
The singer also talked to the audience about her personal struggles, saying she once told a friend “I am weak, I am broken, I am depressed.” She said she’s realized how wrong those words were and how she doesn’t want to support negative thinking. This was how she introduced another song from her upcoming album, one that has yet to be released anywhere, to the dedicated fans at Club Dada. The song, called “I Am,” is an inspirational pop ballad with lyrics like “I am worthy of love….am I strong enough…I am beautiful.”
JoJo talked about the song in particular and said, “It’s amazing how much power we have in our speech and I hope it touches someone like it touches me.”
Both performers’ energy was full-on contagious and the opposite of what a Sunday night should be, definitely making some preteen dreams come true.
