diff --git a/umap/umap_.py b/umap/umap_.py
index 59985d74..0b5a5669 100644
--- a/umap/umap_.py
+++ b/umap/umap_.py
@@ -12,7 +12,11 @@
 from sklearn.preprocessing import normalize
 from sklearn.neighbors import KDTree
 
-from sklearn.externals import joblib
+try:
+    import joblib
+except ImportError:
+    # sklearn.externals.joblib is deprecated in 0.21, will be removed in 0.23
+    from sklearn.externals import joblib
 
 import numpy as np
 import scipy.sparse