“On the 28th of this month I’m going to Morocco and then from that point on every gig is going to be part of the World Tour,” says Stone. “It depends what list you look at, but the list that’s recognised by the UN is 196 countries [in the world]. That’s what we’re going to go by. I’m doing all of them.”
It takes more than a high profile to venture into places such as North Korea and Syria, where military conflict and government hostility is rife. Stone’s world tour is an incredibly gutsy undertaking, but there’s a simple reason for scheduling dates in the globe’s less frequented regions. “I feel like there should not be any barriers,” she says. “There are no barriers when it comes to music. Music is a completely universal language.”
Stone is one of the most successful British musicians of the 2000s and already a well-seasoned traveller. However, this tour goes to places not included in any musician’s regular gig itinerary, thus it will be a rare opportunity for the locals to witness Western pop music firsthand. What’s more, Stone’s tour plans aren’t designed purely to increase her global following.
“It also will be a charitable effort,” she says. “I want to visit a different charity in each country and see what I can do to help personally and, those that listen to me, see what I can encourage them to do to help. There’s so many shitty things that go on in this world, there’s no one thing that matters more than another. It’s impossible for one human to do it all but to encourage millions of people to do a lot is not impossible. I feel like I’ve been given certain tools in this life and I should use them.”
Indeed, Stone has been taking advantage of her natural vocal talent since a very young age. On her 2003 debut Soul Sessions (released when she was 16) the singer demonstrated an in-depth understanding of vintage soul and R&B, which has been further explored with each successive release. Stone’s last album of original music was 2011’s LP1 and a new set is currently being completed.
“Hopefully we’ll have the album being mixed in April,” she says, “while I’m away on my first leg of the world tour. Then I’ll come home and I’ll work on it some more and then it will be done. It’s soul music – everything is if you feel it – but it’s a mixture of R&B/hip hop and reggae overtones.”
The term ‘soul music’ generally refers to a particular stylistic quality, which traces back to African-American gospel music. However, it could be argued that all emotionally stirring music is soul-inspired music, as opposed to ‘head-music’.
“We share emotions, humans, we share our feelings with each other and that’s the beauty of soul music,” Stone says. “I can go onstage and I might sing a song that’s desperate and people will feel it. The beauty in singing a sad song is that it helps everybody that feels that way feel like they’re not alone. That’s what soul music does for me personally. It doesn’t put me into a sad space, it puts me into this space where I’m like, ‘Well thank God I’m not the only one that feels like that.”
Given Joss Stone’s considerable success and massive fanbase, there’s expectations on her to meet a certain standard with everything she releases. Being held up to public critique might prompt one to adhere to a structured writing method but Stone doesn’t attempt to calculate the path to creative success.
“Because I haven’t been musically trained at all I don’t really know what’s right or what’s wrong or what the normal chord progression would be for a soul record or a blues record. So all I have is my gut. The way that I decide whether it’s worthy of being put out there to the masses is whether it feels good.”
This certainly sounds like a nice approach to songwriting, but it does seem somewhat simplified. Relying solely on what feels good would most likely narrow the creative options. Yet, it fits with Stone’s relaxed view on the basic music-making impulse.
“The reason why I like [music] so much is because it’s not stressful and it doesn’t matter what you do. As long as it sounds nice and evokes an emotion I feel like you’ve achieved the goal of making good music. There are really no rules to it, you don’t need to be particularly ambitious, you just need to feel good about it. That’s the beauty in it, it’s a freedom of thought and spirit and vibe. It’s quite a beautiful thing.”
BY AUGUSTUS WELBY
