“J4 is one of the most talented young artists I have ever known. His vocal, songwriting and production skills are stellar.”

-Jan Buckingham, Grammy Nominated Hit Songwriter, Duck House Publishing

 

Buffalo, born, Nashville based artist, songwriter, and producer Joseph Wandass, IV (better known as J4™) has been an inspirational and powerful force in the Nashville music scene. The 24 year old has already built quite the musical resume in his young career. Growing up as a classical music prodigy, J4 performed his first concert at 10 years old. From there, he discovered his love of music while singing in church, studying piano, and performing leads in local musicals. J4 began performing professionally in Nashville, TN in 2012, and he debuted in the back room of Tootsie’s World Famous Orchid Lounge. In 2014, J4 moved to Nashville to follow his musical passions. In between high school classes J4 performed country music weekly at venues on Lower Broadway. 

 

“Music has always been a way in which I can express myself,” J4 explains. “I love telling stories we can all relate to so, for just a moment, we can all feel more connected and experience those stories together.”

 

In 2015, J4 opened for headlining artist Josh Turner (with Gordon Mote and Lee Greenwood) at the Franklin Theatre. The same year, J4 sang background vocals and played guitar for Christian star and worship leader Michael W. Smith at New River Fellowship. Working with these artists, who were alumni of Belmont University, lead J4 to attend Belmont to study Commercial Music with an emphasis in Vocal Performance in 2016. In May of 2017, J4 sang background vocals for the alternative pop band Cage the Elephant at the Ryman Auditorium. In 2018, J4 made his debut radio performance in 2018 at WSM Radio at the legendary Midnight Jamboree hosted by Zach Janson. 

 

During his time at Belmont, J4 had many opportunities to expand his production and songwriting capabilities. In 2017, J4 worked under internationally renowned vocal coach Brett Manning (Haley Williams, Carrie Underwood, Luke Combs) as an intern. J4 also secured an internship in 2019 at Nashville Cool Music Publishing where he worked as a track writer and producer writer under publisher Nancy Deckant.  

 

 In 2019, J4 released his first three singles, "Two Front Seats," "Thinking Bout You," and "Changes," which were all met with great critical reception.

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In 2020, J4 graduated from Belmont University with a Bachelors of Music in Commercial Music. After graduating, J4 released his inspirational song "Bigger," which details his struggles with overcoming cyber-bullying. That summer J4 had the opportunity to make his tour debut with The Extreme Tour, a Christian music outreach tour, performing as a multi-instrumentalist and background vocalist with artist Taylor Zebracki. 

 

In 2021, in light of the pandemic, J4 switched his focus to music production full time, producing such clients as Cory Singer, Christopher Delisle, Sean Caramore, Gabbrielle Metz, and many others. The same year, J4 produced the talent portion for the 2021 Miss Tennessee, Tally Bevis, who utilized J4's stellar productions to advance to the national Miss America Pageant. J4 also had the opportunity to be a judge for the 2022 Miss Nashville Pageant that same year.

 

In 2022, J4 completed a campaign called "365 songs in 365 days," a TikTok series in which J4 wrote one song a day everyday for the year 2022. By collaborating with over 20 other independent writers, J4 obtained nearly a million streams over the year. The series is currently available on Tiktok, Instagram, and Youtube.

 

During this time, J4 released a duet with his fiancée and fellow musical artist Elena Gentleman in July of 2022 entitled "Stay with Me." This remains J4's most streamed song to date. On September 9th, in honor of those killed in his hometown due to the Buffalo mass shooting, J4 released a sentimental ballad entitled "Buffalo," premiering the song as the opening act for Darryl Worley at the Backlot Entertainment Complex in Buffalo, NY.  In addition, he received his first major label song cut on pop artist Kechi’s (America’s Got Talent) debut album, which was released on Orchard in 2022.

 

In December 2022, J4 graduated from Belmont University with a Masters in Music in Commercial Music after studying as a graduate student, working as a graduate assistant, and teaching vocal lessons as an adjunct teacher's assistant.His thesis entitled "Co-Writing Nashville Style, A Recital of Selected Country Songwriters" was published to the Belmont University Lila D Bunch Library in January of 2023. A copy is available here in the Lila D Bunch Digital Repository: "Co-Writing Nashville Style, A Recital of Selected Country Songwriters"

 

Today, as an independent songwriter, J4 has written a catalogue of over 600 songs and works as a freelance music producer and songwriter for many emerging Nashville artists. J4 also currently works as a track writer, producer and songwriter for multiple labels and publishing companies in Nashville, including Heart Songs Music Group, Get Buzzed Publishing, Nashville Cool Music Publishing, Discover Sooner, and many others.