Who Is Jojo Sounds?
Jojo Sounds is the recording name of Atéha Bailly — a musician, composer, producer, and researcher whose sound draws on the pop, electronic, and dance music styles of the U.S., West Africa, the UK, the Caribbean, and Latin America, reflecting his family's own move from West Africa, to the Caribbean and Central America, to the U.S. His vocal approach, honed over years singing in choir, gives it its range and dexterity; his production blends live and sampled instrumentation deliberately, using technology as a tool that deepens human expression rather than replacing it.
He produces and writes for independent artists across pop, R&B, hip hop, and rock — bringing each artist's vision to life from initial beat to finished record — and takes on live performances (acoustic or full band), music production (beats and compositions), writing (book reviews, op-eds), and podcast production. His writing has appeared in Reading Religion, and his podcast production credits include Ministry of Ideas and Machines in Between.
He's also been releasing his own albums and EPs for over fifteen years, most recently World of Sounds Vol. 1 (2026), following releases including"Faith and Apathy," "Things I See," "Formless Green," and "NO WAVE."
That same throughline — sound as a way of carrying identity, memory, and belief across generations and geography — runs through his research. Bailly holds a BA from Reed College and an MDiv from Harvard Divinity School, where his work on Africana religious studies, hip hop, and Islam in America became as central to his artistic practice as his academic one. That research now lives in public form through Hip Hop and Islam, a four-part guided reading course he teaches through The Religion Department (affiliated with the Religion for Breakfast YouTube channel), and has informed projects including Ministry of Ideas (Templeton Foundation) and Machines in Between (Henry Luce Foundation). It's been supported by the Kaspar T. Locher Creative Scholarship, a 2023 AIRIE Fellowship, and a 2025 Assets for Artists Capacity Building Grant.
