Photographer Credit: Tami Doncic @tamipies

“Desire brings forth fantasy and hopefulness,” explained the Manchester-based vocalist, producer and DJ Pops Roberts, aka Private Joy. Speaking with me via Zoom from her home studio on a weeknight in early July, Roberts was filling me in on the feelings behind her forthcoming debut solo EP “Desire!” “I think it is a precursor to yearning,” she continued. I think it’s an important moment when you start earning for something because your mind is opening up.”

Ostensibly an artfully crafted five-song exploration of the gravitational pull of attraction and matters of the heart, “Desire!” can also be understood as a Venn diagram of several of Roberts's overlapping musical interests: UK street soul, grown-and-sexy RnB and neo-soul, deep house, afrobeats and quiet storm ballads. From the stargazed shuffle of ‘Eyes On You’, to the uptempo, harp-led dreamscapes of ‘Let Love Find A Way’, and the breezy machine-funk and swirling ‘80s synths of ‘Pure Love’ (featuring the rapper Meduulla), the EP unfolds with a gentle warmth that feels like a calming balm in our troubled times.

“I think I’m one of those people who naturally dart between things,” mused Roberts. “That’s my behaviour socially, and it’s also my behaviour in the music I ingest. Something that I find fascinating about artists is that we’re just these amalgamations of all these sounds.” In a testament to this, Roberts spoke about Wagner, Puccini, Sade, The Prodigy, and Prince with equal heft during the hour I spent interviewing her. “Obviously, I love RnB and soul,” she said. “They’re a big part of my soul itself, but I also love soundtracks and come from a family with a classical background. The discipline that comes from that and the idea of motifs is infused in what I do. I think I’m a bit of a mashup of everything.”

Born in London, Roberts was raised between two Mahāyāna Buddhist centres in the Lake District and the East Riding of Yorkshire. “I came from the dark forest, I did,” she laughed before noting that you can hear nature sounds she recorded near one of the monasteries on “Desire!”. “‘Let Love Find A Way’ was written in the woods,” she continued, recalling some stolen moments she spent breaking away from a party in the forest. “That was a big moment for me. The moon was magnificent. Its light was piercing through the trees, and everything felt very metaphysical.”

Growing up in the countryside, Roberts spent her childhood climbing trees and hills while feeling very present in her body. In a sense, she sees part of “Desire!” as part of her journey to reconnect with that early flow state after spending most of her adult life in Manchester. “In a way, even though there is a lot of carnal desire on the record, it's also about desire being a word that boils down to your relationship with your body, the environment and coming back to that.”

When she wasn’t playing outdoors, Roberts played instruments, wrote songs, and listened to cassette tapes. Although her parents didn’t have much money to spend, her unconventional upbringing presented some unique opportunities for a music lover. “In Buddhism, we’re trying to shed our material possessions and let go of our egos,” she said. “People who came to the centres would give away their cassettes, so I would just clean up as a child. A lot of the time, they didn’t even have the inlays. Sometimes, it took me years to discover what some of this music was. I just knew it off by heart. You might love or hate it, but I thought “Travelling Without Moving” by Jamiroquai was sick. It’s so beautiful.”

After studying popular music and recording at the University of Salford, Roberts detoured into fashion and hospitality work for a spell. Although she never lost her love for music, during these years, she occasionally wondered what could have been. “You can stay in a situation for too long without realising you’re losing your sense of identity,” she said. “When that happens, you can lose touch and lose your instincts a bit as well. Sometimes, I look back on some of the decisions I made - especially decisions dictated by desire - and I think, how did I think that was going to end any other way?” As anyone who can relate to this sentiment will understand, you just go for it in the heat of the moment.

In her spare time outside work, Roberts started learning to use Ableton Live and writing music at home. “I made a record for R&S’s Apollo imprint with another artist,” she reflected. “There would be some momentum, but then there were blockages. It meant I couldn’t really settle into feeling like an artist.” However, what Roberts was able to do was qualify as an Ableton Live trainer and begin teaching one-on-one classes and group workshops in music production, performance and composition.

Alongside her education work, she found opportunities behind the scenes as a producer and topline writer with the likes of Wolf Music Audio Network, The North Quarter, Dubphizix, Zed Bias, and Swing Ting, putting her spin on soundtrack music, progressive rock, UK garage and broken beat along the way. “One of the main things is I move fast,” Roberts said. “When I’m working on music, I want to be present, feel the world it’s creating and immerse myself in it. I appreciate worldbuilding, and one of the greatest challenges is writing lyrics and making things consistent in a way that paints a picture.”

Photographer Credit: Tami Doncic @tamipies

Over the last five years, Roberts has moved closer to centre stage while leading the Manchester/London-based neo-soul collective Lovescene. “These days, the Manchester soul scene is incredible,” she enthused, as she talked about how drifting through the city’s streets while the residents play music and cook outdoors during summer can feel like a soundclash. “Here in Moss Side, I’ll be walking past where all the “Broadway” and “Bad Boy & All Good Girl” squat parties used to happen - these amazing historical raves - and I’ll see these elders who I love and see in the dance. Being around people responsible for something so cool and effortless is amazing. Carnival here literally happens behind my house. Right at the end of the last one, I was coming out of the park and ran into [the UK street soul artist] Bô'vel. I mean, come on!”

Alongside Lovescene, she’s also won over DJs across the globe as Private Joy. Unsurprisingly, a nod to the purple one, Roberts's alias captures the feeling of getting lost in music that comes through the series of cult singles she’s recorded in recent years with her fellow Manchurian producers Ruf Dug, Hidden Spheres, Finn and Lenzman & Redeyes. Be it the toasty street soul of ‘Don’t Give In’, the Manchester house vibes of ‘Hold On Me’ and ‘What’s Coming Over You?’, or the sharp jungle/drum and bass shapes of ‘Playing It Off’, Roberts’s collaborations collectively situate her as an artist who can easily step sideways between genres. As she sees it, working with the right people is a big part of what has facilitated that frictionless flow. “Everyone I work with, we’re all mad as a box of frogs, but they respect vocals,” she laughed. “Many years ago, I worked with people who didn’t. They’d just slap it on the top and be done with it. You can’t come into your own like that.”

Outside of her efforts as a music tutor, vocalist and producer, Roberts can also be found broadcasting online with NTS and DJing in various contexts around Manchester and further afield. “It’s important to be on different dance floors,” she said. “I’ve been DJing for quite a lot of queer cabarets, drag queens, and seeing what they resonate with. When I’ve been on dancefloors populated by people who are really under the pressure cooker - socially and politically - right now, I feel inspired to write songs that, while they take the form of a love song, are about other pressures as well.”

Scheduled for release in vinyl and digital formats on the 23rd of August 2024, “Desire!” is Roberts's first release through Bradley Zero’s Rhythm Section International label. “I was so excited that the record resonated with them, and they wanted to take it on,” she enthused while talking about how warmly Zero and his crew have welcomed her into their world. “Ever since I’ve met them, they’ve felt like family. Our humour is the same, the Whatsapp group is really funny, and they’ve been mad supportive, and I love their taste in music.”

As we were wrapping up our Zoom conversation, Roberts offered a reflection that summed up her relationship with music and the importance of the private joys it can offer us in this life. “I’ve said this before, but music has been survival for me,” she explained. “When songs hit you, and you feel like you’re in them or not alone, that feeling has never stopped being magical to me. I’m so grateful that music has never stopped having that effect on me. I’ve had so many opportunities to be bored or jaded by it, but I’m just not.”

Desire! will be available for purchase in vinyl and digital formats via Rhythm Section International later this month (pre-order here)