JoJo – trying not to think about it

[hiphopman24]

Too bad she is under this shitty flop label.'its actually a good mixtape. Why can't the bigger labels,drop the shitty artists and add JoJo and other good singers on, instead of her being on this retarded shit label. She needs a better label, and she should sign to a new one, not keep on staying on this shit label. So that is that.

[Would've Been The One]

Mar 3, 2013 10:39:36 GMT -5 hiphopman24 said:

Too bad she is under this s**tty flop label.'its actually a good mixtape. Why can't the bigger labels,drop the s**tty artists and add JoJo and other good singers on, instead of her being on this retarded s**t label. She needs a better label, and she should sign to a new one, not keep on staying on this s**t label. So that is that.

her label Blackground actually has her trapped in a tricky deal. She is actually on twitter encouraging fans to help her with the hashtag #FREEJOJO

[bat1990]

www.courthousenews.com/2013/02/27/55234.htm

I hope this producer wins this lawsuit and that Blackground has to be liquidated or JoJo's contract sold so that she can finally be free.

[Deleted]

Blackground is the WORST!

[SHOOTER]

[awwHALEnahh]

Her situation is so sad to me because I always felt that JoJo was gonna eventually become the next BIG thing. She is such a great singer and her tone and control are superior to some of the current voices heard on radio today. I hope she can break free from this hell-hole known as Blackground.

[Live Your Life]

The contract really sounds crazy as fuck. She and her mother can't give out details, but they've called it "inane, immoral, and archaic." And JoJo said that Barry Hankerson told her he's never letting her out of it, so...

She tweeted this article to prove just how psycho Barry is, but I hope it won't be used against her in any way.

She insists that she, her manager, and lawyer, Doug Davis (@djd), are trying daily to find a way out of it.

[Live Your Life]

"Andre" video:

[stunnedout]

"Andre" is hot.

I dont understand why JoJo cant ge tof Blackground?? TOni was able to get out of her deal. Seems liek JoJo just needs a better lawyer because there is no reason she has to be tied to them.

[Live Your Life]

Remix?

[Deleted]

Finally got around to listening to Agápē, and I like it. My favorite track is "Andre". The video for it is also good. I really hate that she is having label issues still, though. Those record label people need to set her free so that she can release an album to the public, instead of the mixtapes (both I've liked, but I would love an album). I was really looking forward to getting Jumping Trains a while back, but that didn't pan out.

[Deleted]

[Live Your Life]

She posted a cover of Alex Winston's "Sister Wife" on her YouTube page:



She also shot a video for the full version of "Thinking Out Loud."

[darko95]

I feel like she should be on tour with Brandy

[George]

Her next film "G.B.F. (Gay Best Friend)" will premiere at the Tribeca Film Festival this month!

[MyLastView]

I remember seeing her live in October of 2011 (after being a fan since her debut) and just getting CHILLS as she threw down "Disaster" live (not to mention killing it on "Can't Do Better and "Too Little Too Late"). She was so in-command and brilliant. I resent Blackground for holding her back. She needs some way out.

[Peaches. [Ch, r. is]]

Apr 3, 2013 12:05:55 GMT -5 George said:

Her next film "G.B.F. (Gay Best Friend)" will premiere at the Tribeca Film Festival this month!

Is that Alison Dilaurentis?!!?

[surprise]

Apr 4, 2013 4:33:09 GMT -5 Peaches. [Ch, r. is] said:

Apr 3, 2013 12:05:55 GMT -5 George said:

Her next film "G.B.F. (Gay Best Friend)" will premiere at the Tribeca Film Festival this month!

Is that Alison Dilaurentis?!!?

Yes.

[Gray.]

That song "Cold Blooded" that leaked is GREAT. The most I've liked her material since "Disaster" tbh (or maybe "Demonstrate"... maybe).

[Carlyle]

This may sound negative, but I don't think being relinquished from her contract is going to do much. Even with her mixtape, she hasn't proven that she can go up against the Rihanna's of the world. In fact, she doesn't have much of an identity.

[Live Your Life]

I mean...with the amount of time she's been out of the spotlight, and the inconsistency in her career, I don't think anyone is expecting her to come back and be some huge star. That's unrealistic. However, she should at least be able to properly release music like any other artist. No one should be bound to a contract like that.

[kirby2725]

I mean, she's only 22. If anything I see more of a female Robin Thicke/Justin Timberlake thing coming from her. The urban blogs adore her, and if her new material is in the vein of "Demonstrate" and even some of the Frank Ocean-y stuff on Agapé, a significant urban career for JoJo is a possibility.

[George]

Her film "G.B.F." will have its West Coast premiere at the FilmOut San Diego Festival on May 29th as the opening night film!

Details: www.filmoutsandiego.com/lgbt-festival-2013.htm

[darko95]

i was listening back to Agape today and that shit goes. i was always a fan of her voice and always will be. go head

[die Lotterie]

Apr 11, 2013 4:47:20 GMT -5 Carlyle said:

This may sound negative, but I don't think being relinquished from her contract is going to do much. Even with her mixtape, she hasn't proven that she can go up against the Rihanna's of the world. In fact, she doesn't have much of an identity.

What are you talking about? Jojo isn't being backed by a label that's willing to hire songwriters and producers for fifty album cuts at $50k a piece. If Jojo had the backing that Rihanna did, she'd be the total package.

Katy and Rihanna were lucky to have shit fall into place for them. If Jojo had been that lucky she'd be Rihanna to the second power...wait, I take that back. She'd be better because she actually displays real artistry.

[MyLastView]

Apr 11, 2013 4:47:20 GMT -5 Carlyle said:

This may sound negative, but I don't think being relinquished from her contract is going to do much. Even with her mixtape, she hasn't proven that she can go up against the Rihanna's of the world. In fact, she doesn't have much of an identity.

Well it will do a hell of a lot more for her than being stuck in her contract will do for her. She has major talent, and like the above poster said, she doesn't have a major label backing her to help her "identify" herself with the public. She is more or less an unsigned artist right now making music because she loves to.

I think if a major label got behind her, she could do well. Sure, probably not on the scale of Rihanna/Katy etc, but she could still have decent hits and record sales (like someone else said, I think she'd do very welll in the urban market if done right).
[Besides, she can sing CIRCLES around Rihanna and Katy. I like both of them but it's true.]

[darko95]

her mixtape is the fire. i wish she would get some support by a major music station with that video for 'Andre'.

[Live Your Life]

New interview with Rolling Stone:

From 1972 to 2004, the most famous musician from New England known to the wider world as "JoJo" was Jonathan Richman, the pre-punk songwriter who led the Modern Lovers on songs like "Roadrunner," lately the subject of a campaign to make it the official rock song of Massachusetts.

But 10 years ago, Joanna Levesque overtook Richman as Boston's most famous JoJo. An uncommonly gifted child singer born and raised around New England, she was part of the last wave of the early 2000s teen-pop explosion: As a 13-year-old, Levesque scored a number 12 hit single with "Leave (Get Out)," and she rated a harmless namecheck in Eminem's 2004 "Ass Like That." By 2006, JoJo's "Too Little Too Late," from her second album, The High Road, reached number 3 on the Billboard pop chart. It's about as perfect a pop song as they come.

And then? The troubles of her label, Blackground Music, and the changing tides of popular music have delayed her third proper album for the past seven years. While JoJo, now 22, has recorded but largely discarded tracks for the record, she has released two mixtapes, 2010's Can't Take That Away From Me and last year's Agápē. Her 2011 remix of Drake's "Marvin's Room" led to last year's "Demonstrate," a sumptuous collaboration with Drake's producer Noah "40" Shebib. JoJo is all grown up, a far more committed musician and seasoned live performer than most of her mid-Aughts pop peers, and she's champing at the bit to make that elusive third album. She spoke to Rolling Stone while driving her guitar player, with whom she's taking lessons, to the gym in Los Angeles.

What are your earliest memories of singing?
I used to sing songs by Etta James, Ella Fitzgerald, Mariah Carey and Whitney Houston for the ladies at the nail salon. I would ask them for money. I guess I felt I should be compensated for my singing even then.

Did you ever have a Boston accent?
When I was 11, my mom and I moved to California, and at my first day at school, I asked "wheh the bubblah" [water fountain] was. The whole classroom laughed at me, and I knew that I had to do something about my accent if I didn't want to be the laughing stock of the school. But sometimes a pinch of it will come out if I'm really comfortable, drunk or angry.

You were 13 when your first album hit big in 2004. What is your impression of that time?
I couldn't believe that I got to stay up late at the studio and eat junk food, and people liked my music and wanted more. But I had no f**king clue what I was doing from day to day, and I had no concept of image or brand. Now, I look back and cringe: the content of the songs were not age-appropriate. I'll hear something and think that it sounds too AutoTuned and void of emotion. When I hear my first hit, "Leave (Get Out)," I'm affectionately looking at a young girl who I don't really know.

But do you feel the same way about 2006's "Too Little Too Late"? That's a similarly constructed breakup song as "Leave," but a 15-year-old can convey heartbreak better than a 12-year-old.
I loved "Too Little, Too Late" from the moment I heard it. It's written by Billy Steinberg. He has a gift for big Top 40 songs like "Like a Virgin" and tons of others. When my team heard that song, they knew I could hit the sweet spot, musically and in terms of subject matter. It's the perfected version, and we also didn't want to freak my fans out.

While your follow-up to The High Road was developing, you recorded personalized remixes for Sean Kingston's "Beautiful Girls" and T-Pain's "Can't Believe It" and put them up on MySpace. But it was your version of Drake's "Marvin's Room" in 2011 that really knocked them dead.
One morning in New York, I was really hung over. I drank too much because I was really f**ked up over a situation with this guy. And my best friend called me: "You've gotta hear 'Marvin's Room' – it reminds me of you." I wasn't in the mood to listen to anything, but he forced me to listen to it, and I was immediately inspired to get on my phone to write down what I was feeling at that time. I wasn't ballsy enough to tell him what I felt, but that song gave me the courage I needed in real life.

So in 2012, you worked with Noah "40" Shebib, Drake's main collaborator, on "Demonstrate." It's a breakthrough, showing the perspective of a young woman rather than a teenager.
It's the most sexually liberated record I've made. 40 produced the tracks, and one of his in-house writers wrote the lyrics and melody with me.

But while the song was played on R&B radio and spawned multiple YouTube cover versions as soon as it hit the Internet, it was never released officially, and the video was shot but never released. The song was supposed to herald the new direction for your first album since 2006. What is your relationship with your label?
I don't have a relationship with Blackground. They've stopped communicating with me, and they're unable to promote, market and distribute an album.

What do you want now in terms of releasing a formal album, rather than the mixtapes you've put out for free on the Internet?
Well, I haven't recorded an album in so long that I don't recall what it's like. But I want to release an album with the support of a reputable company, one that has distribution, pays its bills and has respect in the business. It's hard to flourish as an artist when the industry as a whole wants nothing to do with the label you are signed to.

Your mixtape Agápē is inspired by Joni Mitchell and Andre 3000. You cover "Free Man in Paris" and you've made a video for the single "Andre."
My mom and dad bonded over Joni Mitchell and James Taylor. As I've grown older and started to explore myself as a writer, I've gone back to Blue and Court and Spark over and over again. I'm so impressed with her writing prowess, individuality, boldness, and her own brand of feminism. I couldn't connect from a lyrical standpoint with her songs until had I had experienced that kind of sadness. It's the same with The Love Below: It didn't make sense the way it's supposed to until I had my own sexual experiences.

You tweeted that Harmony Korine's film Spring Breakers "was like a punch in the gut."
That movie is perverted, honest, and probably scary for people who don't want to acknowledge what's going on with young girls these days. I don't want to sound judgmental, because I've gotten really f**ked up at parties. But I know those kind of girls: they're looking for their identity or sense of purpose, and finding it in their sexuality and in craziness. They think that being drunk, high or dressing provocatively is the same as being a grown-up. It's poignant – the girls in the movie are chasing this perpetual spring break, having fun, being young, sexy and f**ked up. But the bottom line is that you can't do that forever.

[SHOOTER]

Ugh. This poor girl...

[Deleted]