Miranda Joan is a rising, Montréal-born, Brooklyn-based singer/songwriter and musician, who spent her formative years in Vancouver, where she filled up diaries with emotions, thoughts and experiences that would eventually go on to form the basis of her songwriting.
The Canadian-born artist’s first experiences of music and performing came from high school drama and musical theater. Leaning into soul, R&B and jazz, she found a natural and fitting home for her voice. She began to shape her own sound rooted in intricate songwriting and playful production informed by her journals and diaries, as well as influences like Bill Withers, Stevie Wonder, Carole King, Anderson .Paak, Little Dragon, and Robyn among a lengthy list of others.
Miranda Joan relocated to New York to study jazz. And upon her arrival, she opened her inquisitive sound and aesthetic to a host of artists and producers. And fittingly, the grittiness and intensity of the city filtered into her work and approach.
Eventually establishing herself in Brooklyn’s soul and jazz scenes, the Canadian-born artist is the co-host and co-founder of Brooklyn’s Femme Jam, the city’s first all-female led jam session, community initiative to create a womxn-led space with an emphasis on female musicians and artists that specifically fosters inclusivity. For the past eight years, she has been a music mentor with the non-profit SAY: The Stuttering Association for the Young, where she works with youth 8-18, who stutter.
As an artist and performer, she has provided backing vocals for The Killers, Shawn Mendes, Lorde, Kylie Minogue, Andy Grammer and Sly5thAve and the Orchestre National de Jazz de Montréal for a tribute to Dr. Dre. And through those experiences, she has been on national tours and played sold-out, headlining shows across the country, including her adopted hometown. Her full-length debut, 2021’s Windborne, the follow-up to 2019’s Still EP led to her selection as one of First Up with RBCxMusic Emerging Artists.
Both releases received radio airplay in Vancouver and Los Angeles — and that led to sync placement on Canadian TV show Strays. Adding to a growing profile, “Overstimulated,” and “I Love You, Dwayne” have received praise from NPR, Consequence, EARMILK, Exclaim! — and airplay from CBC and MountainFM in her native Canada, and Jazz FM’s Tony Minvielle in the UK.
Blossoming out of what was originally intended as a one-song collaboration, Miranda Joan has spent the past few years collaborating with acclaimed and rising New York-based musician and producer Ben Carr, a.k.a CARRTOONS on her forthcoming sophomore album Overstimulated. Simultaneously leaning into and letting go of the excessive and the overstimulating, the album sees the Brooklyn-based artist move towards a contemporary soul and jazz sound that meshes the electronic and organic. The album also features contributions from Sly5thAve, Jake Sherman, Ben WIlliams, Huntertones and Kristine Kruta. “It is an album book-ended by songs of affirmation, of rooting, of returning to and loving oneself, intertwined with the messy, chaotic and interconnected web of my hopes, dreams, imagination, love, and heartache”, Miranda Joan says.
Overstimulated‘s latest single “Bada Bing!” is built around a lush, Quiet Storm-like soul pop production and arrangement featuring an elastic, two-step-inducing groove while Miranda Joan’s sultry and soulful delivery coquettishly dances within the song’s groove.
Directed by Gigi Nettles, the accompanying video for “Bada Bing!” fittingly is a loving and playful homage to The Sopranos and features some of the familiar sights from the show’s introductory sequences with the Montréal-born, Brooklyn-based artist playing the role of Tony Soprano.
