HANNA CHU
A&E Editor
Professor by day, singer/songwriter/producer/actress by night: Dr. Joi Carr has a life that has remained a mystery to the Pepperdine community, even after eight years at the Malibu campus. On the surface, Joi seems like she is the average professor, teaching upper division literature and film studies courses. She has been married 11 years to religion professor Dr. Raymond Carr. Her students come and go, never realizing that when she is not on campus, Joi is in a completely different world, a world where she is singing in concerts and producing albums in the studio.
“I’ve sung all my life,” she said. “I don’t think of it as extraordinary.”
Raymond, however, said he believes his wife is “uncommonly gifted.” Joi’s public singing career began at an early age. Her mother was a fashion designer, and when there were breaks in the fashion shows, Joi said she was put on the stage as a 3-year-old and was instructed to sing. “I was just doing what my mom said,” she said.
However, the obedience of a child to her mother soon branched into a passion and a career. The third of four children, Joi said she remembers thinking that everyone in the world knew how to sing because she was always singing around the house with her siblings.
“I didn’t realize that it was a gift until later,” she said.
Joi performed at community shows at first, but at the age of 10, she debuted in her first professional show when she was asked to sing at a major gospel concert. Around the same time, Joi was encouraged to compete in the Miss Sugar Ray Robinson pageant. The night she won, a man approached her and asked to be her manager. With a manager and an agent on her side, Joi was given several opportunities to sing and act, and from that point, a star was born.
“I was a session singer for quite a few years and did a lot of background vocals for major artists like David Lee Roth,” she said.
Joi also landed roles in sitcoms in the period right after graduating high school, appearing on shows such as “Amen,” “227” and “The Bronx Zoo” and starring in “Guys and Dolls,” “Oily, Oily Oxen Free,” “Heatwave” and “JUVI.” When Joi was 20, she was offered a record deal but turned it down. “I just didn’t feel comfortable with the kind of tune that they wanted me to sing,” she said. “It was more like sensual, sexual, secular … I just didn’t feel like it was me and what I wanted to do with my life.”
In the midst of following her musical and theatrical passions, Joi also pursued her passion in education, graduating from Lubbock Christian University in 1996 with a major in liberal arts. Joi’s first solo album “Let Go and Let God” was also released the same year.
Today, Carr sits in her office in the CAC: the shelves are packed with books, and three large posters of jazz musicians decorate the walls. “I love my jazz musicians,” she said. They make me feel alive. They remind me that there was a past that people opened doors for me, and that’s why I’m here.”
Joi has two bachelor’s degrees, two master’s degrees and a doctorate degree in English literature and film, not to mention five solo albums, which she took part in producing, engineering, singing and writing the songs.
Her latest album “Love Enough” was released in 2004. “I think I’m more my artistic self on this particular album because it has a contemporary feel. It has a jazz, R&B and pop aesthetic, and the lyrics really reflect my growth in my spiritual life,” she said.
She has been compared to artists such as Sandi Patti and Mariah Carey. “I have a range that is similar to Mariah. I have five octaves, so I can do all that kind of stuff,” she said.
Although it may seem as if music is her passion, and education is her work, Joi says she is equally passionate about teaching.
“When I come to class, I’m there, I’m present,” she said, “I really want my students to be challenged and grow.”
Between her music career and her life as an educator, it may appear as if Carr leads two separate lives, but Joi said, “For me, it all makes sense. It doesn’t feel like a different life. It’s just mine.”
Raymond said he believes his wife’s ability to balance her life is “connected to the fact that she does what she loves to do, and her interests are interconnected.”
“Music is like teaching to me in a way too because it’s a ministry,” she said. Joi is a woman full of passion for life, and she somehow finds the time to exude that passion through several mediums. “She doesn’t thrive on competition, recognition or accolades. Joi just genuinely love encouraging people,” Raymond said.
03-16-2006
