“Viva Lavida” Is Joeboy’s Treatise on Emotional Angst

“Tales of a lovelorn bard,” although slightly less punchy, would probably be a more apt title for the album. Instead, Joeboy christened the album, his third, “Viva Lavida.” This might initially seem like a trivial fact, a nerdy quibble, but traipsing through the etymology of the phrase, its pop culture history, as well as Joeboy’s interpretation of it, reveals an incredible amount of insight. Its etymology can be broken down into two parts: “Viva,” a Spanish word for Latin provenance, which translates to “To live”; and “La Vida,” which translates to “the life.” Taken together, the phrase loosely translates to “Living the life.” 

The central problem with translation is that for all its obvious benefits, it’s an imperfect process. This is to say that oftentimes, in the process of transmutation from one language to another, some meaning is lost. Explaining how locals deploy the translated words or phrases, however, is one way to better clarify things. Picture yourself in Ronda, a scenic town in southern Spain which is frequented by tourists, Ernest Hemingway and Orson Wells being famous visitors. You’re in one of the rustic bars that line the cobbled streets of the town, huddled together at a table with a troupe of locals. The smell of freshly brewed beer tinged with the smells of olive oil and wood smoke, wafts into your nose, heightening the slow, lived-in rhythm of the town. As you chug your beer down your throat, the room erupts in celebration. You scan the room curiously, your eyes landing on the old Television in the corner of the room. Real Madrid have just scored. It’s a dying-minute goal, which has secured their Copa Del Rey win. Glasses clink vigorously around you. A symphony of laughter and hoots ricochets around the room. “Viva La Vida” someone bellows. The room echoes it back. Cheers to life. 

Given its lore and wholesome nature, Joeboy is hardly the first to christen a project with those words. In 2008, Coldplay popularized the words globally with their song Viva La Vida. But while the phrase is typically used to denote ebullience, Joeboy’s interpretation of it depicts a textured mosaic composed mainly of fraught romance. There are moments of pure joy and revelry in the album. Take Adenuga, in which he teams up with Qing Madi for a moment of delicious Pop goodness. The song boldly leans into classic Pop tropes to paint a portrait that evokes the kind of love one might find in a Disney animation. But the bulk of the album finds Joeboy in a more austere register. He’s often lovelorn, contemplative, and cynical. On Taxi Driver, one of the better songs on the project, he opens pointedly with the words “Who send me make I fall in love again?”  The album cover—an illustration of Joeboy in a tropical paradise, bathed in the warm orange glow of the sun and garlanded with flowers and foliage—also evokes a sense of boundlessness that the title suggests. What then is the cause of this dissonance between the album’s title (and creative direction) and its actual content? Is it simply a case of a marketing-induced mischaracterization, or is something deeper at play here?

I first heard of the album’s title sometime in the middle of last year. A few weeks after I appeared as a guest on With An S podcast—in an episode where myself, Deji, and Bola, both of whom are hosts of the podcast, had engaged in light-hearted commentary over Joeboy’s career, particularly his reticent nature, which is somewhat anachronistic in Afropop’s vibrant milieu—someone on his team intimated me on the title. My initial thought was that the album would take on the bubbly ambiance of Osadebe and Adenuga—lead singles from the album. In December last year, I attended his concert at the Landmark Event Center: The Lavida Experience. In one of the interludes between performances, he delivered an impassioned speech about how the album represents a new era in his life. It’s not usual for artists to trot out such platitudes, but his speech bore an earnest tone . The picture would however coalesce into a cohesive whole when, a few weeks before it officially dropped, I listened to the album for the first time. While the first listening experience offered a lot of clarity, it left me with a lot more questions. 

Days before the Album’s listening party, I spoke to Joeboy about the album. His subversion of expectations for the album by delivering a textured portrait instead of a glossy one, occupied center stage in our conversation. When I asked him what Viva La Vida means to him, he replied “Freedom, being free; and freedom can mean different things. I’m at that point in my life where I no longer do things with fear, if something feels right to me, I’m doing it, regardless of what the outcome may be.” Listening through, you can almost taste the feeling of freedom and boundlessness that courses through the project. It’s an album of yearning, of desire, the album almost feels like an attempt at working through emotions long repressed. Innocent, the opening track, finds him litigating a tense romantic situation with a love interest. He’s vulnerable, almost desperate as he expresses his feelings for her, “Everything I surrender to you, why you con say I be like brother to you?” He sings. 

Streets Are Lonely finds him similarly pensive as he grapples with a turbulent romantic situation over beautiful Eastern melodies. He’s trying his best to salvage a frayed relationship, not necessarily out of love but out of fear of loneliness. But Taxi Driver is where this motif finds perfect expression. In one fell swoop, he consolidates the two competing forces on the project: troubled love and the elusive idea of freedom. If you’ve ever had an argument with a lover and immediately booked a ride in your emotional state, just to be physically distant from the volatility of the situation, this is a song you’d relate to all too well. “Taxi driver can you take me home/ I can’t feel my soul/ I’m better on my own.” He sings. 

The album has its more upbeat moments. Hey Father finds him surfing a jaunty beat as he bristles against his enemies. Magdalene, one of the most interesting songs on the album, evokes the nostalgia of old Nollywood. Listening to its playful lyrics and punchy melodies brings to mind those old movies where Aki and Pawpaw or Osuofia would treat viewers to a dose of undiluted whimsy. But the album’s propulsive force is the wistfulness that haunts it. Whether it’s Sinner where he sings “So much pain in my heart/ Drugs no dey even help no more”; or I’ll Be Okay where he teams up with Wizard Chan to petition God for a reprieve from his sorrows. Viva Lavida finds Joeboy consumed with a desire for freedom and serenity, which aren’t exactly revolutionary themes, but it’s the carefulness and honesty with which he explores these themes that make it perhaps his most compelling album yet.