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Local Music Mondays is a weekly segment produced by WUKY's DeBraun Thomas. Check here for archived episodes, extended interviews, and extras.

Local Music Monday: Joslyn Hampton

Dwayne Lloyd

This week DeBraun spends a few minutes getting to know songwriter, and lead singer of the group, Joslyn & The Sweet Compression, Joslyn Hampton.

Joslyn got her start singing in church and got into the local music scene after joining the Tim Talbert Project. Hampton says she always wanted to sing and got even more serious about it when she started writing her own music.

“One of my cousins wanted me to start singing, he had a friend who had a studio and he was like ‘hey, I want you to come to the studio and start laying down some tracks, writing music’ so, I got into a little bit of writing there, me and the guy wrote music together, it never came out of course, Tim came in and played one of my songs I wrote, he played it, I was like ‘ok’ and that’s kinda where we met and he said ‘oh I have a band’ and I’m like ‘ok, well let’s do this’ and been there since then.”

Since 2012 Hampton has been singing with the Tim Talbert Project, but has always wanted to do more. In 2015 on the advice of her Step-Father, guitarist Marty Charters, she started writing and recording original music for a new project called Joslyn & The Sweet Compression. Hampton says that while the push for the band came from her Step-Father, the writing process has been completely organic.

“It’s just whatever the music tells me, like, the last song me and my step-dad wrote together, it’s so funny, he gave me the track and he listened to it, we came together and we had literally the exact same lyrics, we just feel like the music tells you what the song is gonna be about, like it’s not necessarily something that triggers it other than that, I just thought it was so funny when we both had the same lyrics, I was like ‘ha,’ the music will tell you.”

Hampton continues to write music with her Step-Father and enjoys the collaborative process. It might be her songs the band is performing, but Hampton says the reason the product is so great, is because everyone puts in work.

“I think everyone works hard, everyone is actually dedicated, you know, they come in, they lay it down, they listen to the music and I think that was one of the things Marty was most impressed with, especially with them being, you know, a pretty young band, we have a very versatile band, we have Marty [Charters] and Smith [Donaldson], the rest of us are in our late 20’s, it’s a nice woven unit, like we’re pretty tight and I appreciate them more than they know, I tell them every day, but I don’t think they know exactly how much I appreciate them for their dedication and hard work.”

Joslyn Hampton performs with the Tim Talbert Project and Joslyn & The Sweet Compression. More information about Hampton and her projects can be found at JoslynAndTheSweetCompression.com

DeBraun Thomas fell in love with radio at a young age but only had interest in working in radio after learning Funk musician Sly Stone got his start in radio. A native of the San Francisco Bay Area, Thomas moved to Lexington in 2009 to attend the University of Kentucky and pursue a career in radio. Thomas joined WRFL in 2009 and through the UK school of Journalism, Thomas had 2 features air on WUKY. In October of 2012, Thomas began interning at WUKY and produced the Unghosting of Medgar Evers. In August of 2013 Thomas became a staff member at WUKY and since that time, Thomas regularly produces the weekly segment Local Music Mondays which highlights local musicians in Lexington. Thomas hosts the Crunkadelic Funk Show which airs Saturday nights at 9pm and also produced a documentary on the 50th anniversary of the March on Frankfort. In addition to producing and hosting a radio show, Thomas also explores his other passion as a musician in Lexington.
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