JOJO ABOT is an interdisciplinary healer exploring evolving themes of spirituality, identity and community through music, film, fine art, fashion, photography and various other expressions. Committed to a philosophy of "Message Over Medium", the artist aims to provoke larger conversations and actions towards collective elevation, healing and harmony. An Ewe woman born in Ghana and currently based in LA, JOJO ABOT offers intimate invitations into the practice of true freedom, love and re-membering through sacred ceremonies of togetherness, reflection and transformation engaging the self as the starting point to unity, universal connection and ascension. Serving as a bridge between the physically and metaphysically, her offerings invite us into a spiritual dance that allows for a coming together of ancestry, traditions and global cultures.
Fresh off the premier of her immersive spatial opera, A GOD OF HER OWN MAKING ft Esperanza Spalding, she expands a blossoming career offering interdisciplinary works in collaboration with the MOMA, Brooklyn Museum, The Ghana Pavilion at La Biennale Di Venezia, Frieze art fair x Theaster Gates x Prada, Hult Center, Armory week NYC, Perez Art Museum Miami and many others. JOJO ABOT has toured with Ms Lauryn Hill, played stages like Afropunk, Roots picnic, Radio city music hall, The Apollo Theater, Kennedy Center, Greek theater and more while being the first unsigned artist to perform live for NYC's Times Square new year's eve concert to over a million people.
Honoring the call to limitless expression, JOJO ABOT remains an exhibiting artist showing works in various solo and group exhibitions featuring sculpture, textile, painting, installations and mixed media offerings that echo her visions of worlds past, present and future. An alumni of the New Museum's incubator program, New Inc, and former resident at National Sawdust, JOJO ABOT continues to develop and present her interdisciplinary practice through POWER TO THE GOD WITHIN and other curatorial projects.
PRESS
2022
“Music Feature: JOJO ABOT,” Feminist
“JOJO ABOT, déesse de l’afro-hypno-sonic music” Nova/ Radio Nova
“FIP en Trans #1 avec Meule, Ariel Tintar et Jojo Abot,” Radio France
2021
“White Magic” Flaunt Magazine (Online and Print)
“Forced Online, an Opera Festival Searches for Intimacy”, New York Times
2020
“10 Questions with... JOJO ABOT Pop-Kultur,” Berlin
2019
“The Liberation of Jojo Abot” Design Hotels (Further)
“The Austin 100: JOJO ABOT,” wbur
“SXSW Music Preview x NPR,” WFIT
“ON GOD, HOME, AND POWER WITH JOJO ABOT,” AFROPUNK
“Review: Womad Day 2”, Songlines
“Womad Festival Review: an all age, all cultures celebration,” The Times
“JOJO ABOT | “No Part Of The World Owes Me Anything” GRIOT
“Review: Womadelaide 2018: all singing, all dancing festival of joy”, The Guardian
“Interview: Jojo Abot talks about new ‘psychedelic gqom’ track,” Music in Africa
“Taking back the power pushed JOJO ABOT to music,” IOL
2017
“OkayAfrica’s 100 Women” OkayAfrica
“Ghana's Jojo Abot: In the Moment,” Afropop Worldwide
2016
“Review: Bombino, Mokoomba, JOJO ABOT and Others Play Africa Now! at the Apollo,” The New York Times
2015
“Back to Ghana: JOJO ABOT,” BBC
“1xtra: Destination Africa ft Stormzy and JOJO ABOT,” BBC 1xtra
“Terrorism, sexism and corruption, here’s music that covers it all,” CNN
ARTISTIC PROJECTS & COMMISSIONS
Creator, We The Culture by Meta Cohort
Composer, Director, “A GOD OF HER OWN MAKING” spatial interdisciplinary opera ft Esperanza Spalding, Premier - National Sawdust, Brooklyn
Producer, Songwriter, Performer, (FYFYA WOTO EVELIA” The EP, NYC 2020 Producer, “Meditation of Resistance and Existence," iPhone Only Production, Worldwide
Producer, Songwriter, “POWER TO THE GOD WITHIN”
Director, Composer, Choreographer, “POWER TO THE GOD WITHIN.” The Multimedia Theater Experience and Exhibition, National Sawdust and Hult Center
Producer, Songwriter, “NGIWUNKULUNKULU”, South Africa
Producer, Songwriter, "Spirit" , an album for Benjamin Bronfman, Brooklyn, NY 2016 Producer, Songwriter
"FYFYA WOTO," The EP. MillFactory Studios, Denmark
Stylist, "An African City," Season 1
RESIDENCIES /INCUBATORS
Resident Artist, Surf Point Foundation Residency
Cohort - We The Culture by Meta
Resident Artist, Further, Timber Cove by Design Hotels
Member, New Inc., New Museum-led incubator program Resident Artist, National Sawdust
SELECT SHOWS/PERFORMANCE
Trans Musicales
Art Basel x Hennessy x FWB
Prototype Festival x LA Opera and California Performing Arts, Modulation
Times Square on New Year’s Eve
Frieze London x Theaster Gates x Prada
WOMAD Australia and New Zealand
Ghana Pavilion celebration at Venice Bienniale
Afropunk Johannesburg
Roots Picnic
Afropunk Brooklyn
Radio City Music Hall x Ms. Lauryn Hill Greek Theater x Ms. Lauryn Hill MOMA
Apollo Theatre, x Ms. Lauryn Hill, Common Kennedy Center
Today at Apple, Williamsburg
Apollo Theatre - Africa Now
Kings Theatre Diaspora Calling x Ms. Lauryn Hill and Stephen Marley Brooklyn Museum Vancouver Folk Music Festival
EXHIBITIONS
Burning Man x Sothebys
LA Louver x Alison Saar, Vannessa L. German
Salt To Catch Ghosts x Slash Art
Message Over Medium, Shoot the lobster (Los Angeles)
Garden, LadiesRoom LA
POWER TO THE GOD WITHIN, Brooklyn
POWER TO THE GOD WITHIN x OnCanal x WALLPLAY
PUBLICATIONS AND APPEARANCES
2023
Speaker, “Sound and Color: The Future of Race in Design” Park Avenue Armory
2022
Speaker, “Reparations: Reckoning, Return and Reclamation” Art Basel Miami x Zeal Speaker
“Web3 And The Impact of AI” FWB x Hennessy Art Basel Miami
PRESS
2022
“Music Feature: JOJO ABOT,” Feminist
“JOJO ABOT, déesse de l’afro-hypno-sonic music” Nova/ Radio Nova
“FIP en Trans #1 avec Meule, Ariel Tintar et Jojo Abot,” Radio France
2021
“White Magic” Flaunt Magazine (Online and Print)
“Forced Online, an Opera Festival Searches for Intimacy”, New York Times
2020
“10 Questions with... JOJO ABOT Pop-Kultur,” Berlin
2019
“The Liberation of Jojo Abot” Design Hotels (Further)
“The Austin 100: JOJO ABOT,” wbur
“SXSW Music Preview x NPR,” WFIT
“ON GOD, HOME, AND POWER WITH JOJO ABOT,” AFROPUNK
“Review: Womad Day 2”, Songlines
“Womad Festival Review: an all age, all cultures celebration,” The Times
“JOJO ABOT | “No Part Of The World Owes Me Anything” GRIOT
“Review: Womadelaide 2018: all singing, all dancing festival of joy”, The Guardian
“Interview: Jojo Abot talks about new ‘psychedelic gqom’ track,” Music in Africa
“Taking back the power pushed JOJO ABOT to music,” IOL
2017
“OkayAfrica’s 100 Women” OkayAfrica
“Ghana's Jojo Abot: In the Moment,” Afropop Worldwide
2016
“Review: Bombino, Mokoomba, JOJO ABOT and Others Play Africa Now! at the Apollo,” The New York Times
2015
“Back to Ghana: JOJO ABOT,” BBC
“1xtra: Destination Africa ft Stormzy and JOJO ABOT,” BBC 1xtra
“Terrorism, sexism and corruption, here’s music that covers it all,” CNN