Buffalo, born, Nashville based artist, songwriter, and producer Joseph Wandass, IV (better known as J4™) has always had a passion for music. Growing up a classical prodigy, he performed his first concert at 10 years old with his father at the Boston Town Fire Company. He discovered his love of music while singing in church as a child, before moving to Nashville, Tennessee for high school. In between classes in 2014, at only age 15, he began performing daily at Tootsie’s World Famous Orchid Lounge and started co-writing with established songwriters like Jan Buckingham (Lee Greenwood, Whitney Houston, Tim McGraw, Pam Tillis), John Goodwin (Michael McDonald, Brad Paisley, Steely Dan), James Breedwell (Joey Evancho, Kechi, Jeffrey Li, Barry Darcy), Kirsti Manna (Blake Shelton), among many others.
“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.”
J4 has already built quite the musical resume in his young career. In 2015, he opened for headlining artists Josh Turner, Gordon Mote and Lee Greenwood at the Franklin Theatre in Nashville, TN. In 2017, he lead worship with CCM stars Michael W. Smith and Leeland as a member of the New River Fellowship Church of Franklin. That same year, J4 sang background vocals for the alternative pop band Cage the Elephant at the Ryman Auditorium.
J4 made his debut radio performance in 2018 at WSM Radio at the legendary Midnight Jamboree on a tribute for country music legend George Strait's drummer and held the number one spot on the Nashville Reverbnation Songwriter and Pop charts in both 2018 and 2019. 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 SONY Orchard in 2022. He also had the opportunity in July of 2020 to make his tour debut with The Extreme Tour, a Christian music outreach tour, performing with breakout country/Christian artist Taylor Zebracki.
In 2021, due to the pandemic, J4 switched his focus back 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 2021 Miss Tennessee, Tally Bevis, who utilized J4's stellar productions to advance to Miss America. In addition, he also produced Grace Deitz and her original song about suicide awareness, helping Dietz claim USAO Miss Minnesota. In late 2021, J4 had the opportunity to judge for the current reigning Miss Nashville.
Beginning in 2022, J4 began a campaign to write "365 songs in 365 days," a Tiktok series that has garnered over 500,000 views on the app alone. Following up this sheer success, J4 released a duet with his fiancée and fellow musical artist Elena Gentleman in July of 2022. He plans to release his largest song yet, "Buffalo," on September 9th, in honor of those killed in his home
