Joyce Wrice Announces Album & Drops New Track ‘Salimata’
LA by way of San Diego, and Chula Vista R&B artist Joyce Wrice has announced her long awaited sophomore album MACHIKO, arriving October 9 via BMG Records. Japanese for ‘city girl,’ Machiko is the middle name Wrice’s mother gave her – a word that is also symbolic of a wish of boundless hope. Rooted in that wish for the woman she would grow into, MACHIKO is Wrice’s own understanding of the woman she has become. Not another heartbreak album, MACHIKO is a self-examination of the patterns, the fear of being seen, and what love looks like when you stop protecting yourself – sensual, playful, and a little reckless, flirting with the risk instead of flinching from it. “I’m not heartbroken and jaded anymore,” Wrice says. “This era is about living fully, confidently, and fearlessly.” Produced in part by D’Mile (Rihanna, Beyonce, Victoria Monet), Lido (Ariana Grande, Mariah Carey, Halsey, Smino, etc..), Jay Versace (SZA, Tyler, the Creator, Doja Cat, Westside Gunn), Malik Ninety Five (Doechi, 6lack) and rising r&b singer/songwriter and california native Mack Keane.
Today she’s released a new single, “Fly (Someone You Love),” featuring Salimata. A weightless, flirtatious record about the free-fall of new attraction, the song catches Wrice at the exact moment her guard comes down – “the way your eyes looking at me right now got me thinking I could fly.” The album will include previously released “Break Me In” a taunting, full-throttle seduction anthem, as well as “Crack The Code,” a slow-burn of Y2K-soft R&B about falling for the right one.
Born in Chula Vista to a Japanese mother and an African-American father, Wrice has quietly built one of R&B’s most critically revered catalogs, amassing over 180 million global streams and collaborations with Kaytranada, Freddie Gibbs, Lucky Daye for “Falling In Love” off his Grammy Award project Table For Two, Masego, Westside Gunn, Jordan Ward, and UMI. Her 2021 debut album Overgrown, executive produced by Grammy-winning hitmaker D’Mile (Bruno Mars, Silk Sonic, Victoria Monét), earned acclaim from i-D, Rolling Stone, Los Angeles Times and The FADER, while her voice reached new audiences as the theme song for Disney+’s The Proud Family: Louder and Prouder. On stage, standout performances at NPR’s Tiny Desk, COLORS, Roots Picnic, and Day N Vegas have cemented her reputation as a vocalist’s vocalist. This year, Gold House, a a prominent non-profit organization and collective that unites Asian and Pacific Islander (API) founders, creators, and leaders to drive cultural change and economic equity, named Wrice a 2026 Gold100 honoree at the Gold Gala in May, and she joined the inaugural cohort of the East West Bank Gold Music Lab, Gold House’s Futures Accelerator for music, in August.