Two years after finding a kidney donor and bouncing back to better health, JoJo Martin is back with a new single called “Even It Takes Forever” featuring Kierra Sheard.
“The song is about love. I’m a church kid. I grew up going to church. The song isn’t throwing Jesus in your face, but you know what I’m talking about. It gives people a chance to interpret the music from whatever stage of relationship with God they have,” he says.
Due to his battle with focal segmental glomerulosclerosis (FSG), a genetic kidney disease that claimed the life of his brother Jerome at age 29, Martin sat on the song for a few years while recovering.
“If you have [FSG], it usually activates when you are in your 20s and it kills your kidneys,” he says. “I had been touring and was on a break. I got super sick. For days, I thought it was the flu. The last day I couldn’t even hold down water, so I went to the hospital. The doctor said I had swine flu. The similarity to covid-19 is incredible. I had a temperature of 104 every day. My kidney function fell to 5%, my blood pressure was sky high. The only thing different is I never got on a ventilator. They found FSG in my kidney biopsy.”
Martin was on dialysis for almost nine hours a night some days, in and out of hospitals for infections and had to use a cane to walk. It was something he never talked about publicly. And in 2018, his friend surprised him by becoming his kidney donor.
“I never complained about hating dialysis during that time,” he says. “I just wanted to make God proud. I knew it wasn’t anything that I did to make myself sick. Somebody needed to see me go through this and go through it well. God gave me the strength to get through another day.”
Won’t God do it!?
Martin and Sheard, who have a little musical history, are the perfect duo on the track.
“I’ve always been a fan of Kierra,” he says. “The first tour I got to do on my own as a solo artist – Kierra gave me that opportunity. She’s one of my favorite voices, one of my favorite people.”
Listen:
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