Joelistics

Producer, rapper, composer and multi-instrumentalist Joel Ma is recognised as a unique voice in the Australian music landscape, with a reputation for sharp lyricism and sonic innovation. Under the moniker Joelistics, his debut album Voyager and follow-up album Blue Volume opened up a new lane in Australian hip-hop, winning plaudits for forward-thinking production and vivid lyricism.

From 2017 onward, Joelistics expanded into production and co-writing for other artists, co-producing Haiku Hands’ debut album and producing the acclaimed ARIA award-winning track “Native Tongue” for Mo’Ju, alongside work with artists including Horrorshow, Birdz, Hermitude, Emma Donovan, Ecca Vandal, Wil Wagner, Tim Rogers, Parvyn Singh and Mindy Meng Wang. In 2020 he received Music Victoria’s Producer of the Year Award, and in 2021 he was named a Sydney Myer Fellow.

In 2022, Joel was Artist in Residence for Gamelan DanAnda, resulting in the intercultural Balinese-Melbourne project Saudara Sound System. In 2023, he worked with The Australian Art Orchestra, established BUTTONS, a monthly experimental beat night, and soundtracked the feature film Blue Canaries. Since 2025, Joel has worked at APRA AMCOS on the acclaimed SongMakers program and at Wild at Heart, an organisation empowering songwriters and musicians with disabilities, while continuing to produce music for a range of artists and personal projects.