interview
Joy Denalane
The singer about self-love, rejection and being different
© Sascha Steinbach / Getty Images
Soul and R&B singer Joy Denalane was part of Triumph’s Love Your Changes Day. At various panel talks, the successful musician spoke about her personal experiences with change. In an interview with GALA, she tells how she became the self-confident woman she is today.
With her unique soul voice, singer Joy Denalane, 47, is one of the most successful singers in Germany. In an interview with GALA, the Berliner talks about self-confidence, self-love and the feeling of being “different”…
GALA: Your current album is called “Let yourself be Loved.” How do you feel about self-love? How do you express them in your everyday life?
Joy Delanane: To be honest, I’m doing pretty well with the topic of self-love. In the sense that I can be good with everyone and like to spend time with myself. I know myself and my weaknesses. I also think that’s advisable. That you deal with yourself. But beyond that I can also look down on myself with a loving look and say “I’m okay like that”. Of course, also in connection with the idea of improving yourself, becoming smarter and, above all, looking at the world and not being satisfied with the things that you have defined as a belief at some point.
Has self-reflection always been an issue for you or did you have to learn it the hard way?
Self-reflection has always been an issue for me. I grew up in Berlin, Germany, as a black girl in a white majority society. This inevitably made me think about it. And above all, to ask myself whether I think it’s good to look “different” or to be marked as “different” from the outside. It’s not something you start with yourself.
Did it take time for self-reflection to turn into self-love?
I’ve always really liked myself. Maybe out of an early childhood instinct to survive, which has to do with the rejections that I had to experience again and again in my childhood. I can not say exactly.
And I don’t think I’m too great now either, I just take it well with myself.
And finally, I also had role models in my life – my father, for example. Every time I came home I knew why I looked the way I did. That was like my daily dose of affirmations.
Were you raised to do this from the start? Was being “different” a topic?
Yes! At least it was discussed how to react to situations of discrimination – that you should definitely say something, that you should stand up, and that you shouldn’t just put up with it.
The Triumph campaign is all about change. As we learned after last year, change is everywhere and will come whether we want it or not. How do you deal with change?
I would be dishonest if I said that all the changes passed me by without a trace. Or if I said, “Oh, everything will be fine if I just endure long enough.” There are very different phases I go through. Productive phases, but also moments when you worry because you don’t know when it will all end.
You are a role model for many women. Do you have any tips or rituals for days when self-love isn’t going well?
I think there have to be days like this. They’re perfectly fine. I then try to simply accept them and not want to compulsively optimize anything. That’s part of life.
There are always phases in which one quarrels with oneself and doubts oneself.
That also leads to a development of questioning oneself and asking oneself questions: “Am I happy with what I’m doing right now?” If not, I have to try to change the situation, to improve it. Of course, this takes effort, but the result is worth going the extra mile every now and then.
Sources used: own interview
This article originally appeared on Brigitte.de