Jully Black is loving life these days – “lifein’,” as she calls it.
At 47, the Juno– and Canadian Screen Award-winning R&B powerhouse and actress, who was inducted into Canada’s Walk of Fame in 2021, is engaged, becoming Mrs. Valentine – yes, his real surname – on June 15. But before finishing all the wedding plans, she is embarking on her first national headlining tour in 17 years.
The Songs and Stories tour starts Feb. 7 in Oakville, Ont., and wraps up in mid-March in Camrose, Alta., hitting 14 cities in all. Edmonton Afro-fusion group Melafrique, whose members will also serve as half of Black’s live band, open for her on the tour.
“We’ve decided to merge our bands together to be able to take this on the road,” Black says. “Touring is tough these days, but all of us started making music for the love of it. Yes, we need to make money, but I also feel like the world, and our country, is at a place where we need some hope. We’re waiting on a new leader. I think it’s a good time to go out there and interact and cast our cares away for a second and realize that there’s people that relate to each other more than we think.”
Like her last album, 2022’s Three Rocks and a Slingshot, the tour honours her late mother, Agatha, a single parent who raised nine children and whom Black loved and cherished beyond words. She has been working through the grief and has some beautiful ways she stays connected, including talking about her in the present.
Black, who has performed alongside Alicia Keys, Kanye West, Elton John and Celine Dion, and has written songs for – or collaborated with – Nas, Destiny’s Child, Sean Paul, and Big Wreck’s Ian Thornley, has long been considered Canada’s Queen of R&B. Her career, though, hasn’t been a straight trajectory to the top.
She released her first three full-length albums through Universal Music Canada – her 2005 debut This Is Me, containing the single Sweat of Your Brow; 2007’s Revival, featuring her cover of the Etta James treasure Seven Day Fool; and 2009’s The Black Book, with the top 40 single Running – before going independent in 2012. She dropped singles here and there but when she finally released her 2022 disc Three Rocks and a Slingshot – her first studio album in 13 years – it debuted at No. 1 on iTunes.
Alongside music, Black added acting to her CV, including a stage production of Da Kink in My Hair – as well as appearances in the television adaptation – and TV shows like Coroner and Diggstown, before she took on the lead in the civil rights-era stage musical Caroline, Or Change, for which she won a Dora Mavor Moore Award.
In terms of wellness, she created The Power of Step, an aerobics and personal transformation coaching business and an off-shoot, 100 Strong and Sexy. You can also see her regular appearances on Breakfast Television called “Movin’ in the Morning.”
Black is always in the public eye, doing something, motivating someone, entertaining everyone.
Funny, engaging, and empathetic, she is also unafraid to speak out about injustice and racism. She famously confronted Jeanne Beker about questions of colonial privilege on CBC’s Canada Reads in 2018. Black also received widespread praise when she bravely changed one crucial word in O Canada at the 2023 NBA All-Star Game from “our home and native land” to “on native land” and was later honoured by theAFN Special Chiefs Assembly.
Black, who hints that her next album might be released under the name Jully Valentine, spoke to Zoomer about her upcoming tour, how it honours her mother and “turning grief to greatness.”
KAREN BLISS: I’ve seen you perform many times over in recent years. It’s hard to believe this is your first national tour in 17 years.
JULLY BLACK: I’ve been doing a lot of spot dates, corporates, festivals, but as far as like 10, 14 shows in a row, as the headliner and independent, my last full national tour was when I was signed to Universal. It was right after Revival in 2008. For me, Ontario sees me all the time. People can run into me at Shoppers Drugs Mart and Longo’s [laughs], but I haven’t been to Regina since Regina Folk Festival or Calgary since Stampede in 2008.
KB: The tour is called Songs and Stories. Will the stories be tied in with the writing and recording of the songs?
JB: It’s woven in. But I will say, it’s not just my stories; it’s my mom’s stories. My mom’s presence. My mom plays a big part in this show. I’ll leave it like that. Bring the tissues, for sure.
KB: Touring can be hard on your voice and body. How are you preparing?
JB: It is five years, almost to the day, that I did Caroline, or Change and so … it’s muscle memory. It’s no alcohol. I’m fasting. It’s getting my sleep. I’m eating extraordinarily well. I already eat well. But no acidic foods, et cetera. And it’s practicing because doing two or three shows in a row, that’s a different energy than doing the spot dates.
KB: I’ve seen you perform at corporate events and sometimes you will start chatting with someone in the audience or even call someone out if they are talking loudly. Will you be spontaneous like that?
JB: I do like to interact. I think that it’s more about being present. So, if I notice if somebody’s crying, I will go out there and put my arm on their shoulder. The old-school Jully, it more came from lack of confidence if somebody’s chatting or somebody’s folding their arms. I’m paying attention to those who actually want to be there. And to be open, this is my tour. They bought a ticket to come see me. And I think that’s the difference.
I was yearning for that. A corporate. A festival. Love all of them. It’s given me a great career. But nothing beats someone singing your words, even after hearing it just one time through and the chorus comes again, and you do the call and response. Yeah, there will be some ad-libs, but I know what stories I’m going to tell. Some will be how the song came about. But I think it’s more the emotional connection to the song.
But also healing. Redemption. Forgiveness is a big theme in this show. In my life, it’s the gateway to freedom. There’s a lot of people moving through life with resentment. People living rent-free in their minds. Turning grief to greatness. So, it’s a practice, almost like yoga, to really become free again.
KB: Absolutely. But it is a concert. When you say it’s about healing, redemption and forgiveness, people should expect that?
JB: I’m talking about the most hard-nose, toughest of the toughest because you know when you say you got goosebumps? I say “truth bumps” because you cannot make those bumps come on your skin on your own. The more vulnerable I am, the more others give themselves permission. “Oh, Jully’s baring it all, alright then, maybe I could bare even a little bit.”
KB: It’s really beautiful, and I envy you as an artist, that you have a place to pay homage to your mother in your show.
JB: Thank you, and that’s gonna be that’s another part of the messaging. What’s really helped me flourish is I speak about my mom in first person, in real time. I say, “She is beautiful.” I don’t say “she was.” When people ask me about my skin, I get it from my mom. Her presence, her legacy, truly lives on through me. And I tell people, “Keep the pictures up. Don’t put them in a photo album and have to go look for it. Keep them up. Put them as your screensaver.”
It’s eight years [since she passed away], but what does that even mean? What is time? I think that the last eight years has been me becoming. It’s like a caterpillar to butterfly. I’ve never felt this surrender, this soft, this feminine. I often say, I’m not fearless, but I fear a little less, and when the anxiety comes, I think, “I’m okay. Look what you’ve gotten through.”
So, this tour, we’re funding it on my own and, to me, that’s a big victory. I’m not going into it like, “Okay, I’m scared I’m gonna lose all this money.” We planned two years for this tour, 2023 February, after the [NBA] anthem. We said, “Let’s figure out how we can come up with the resource and do this tour,” and here we are two years later.
