She is climbing the charts as pop music’s latest young sensation, but 13-year-old JoJo believes her music transcends the bubble gum crowd.
JoJo’s first single “Leave (Get Out)” topped Billboard’s singles sales charts earlier this year, and her hip-hop and soul-tinged album “JoJo” debuted as No. 4 on the Billboard chart when it was released last month.
Born Joanne Levesque, the petite brown-haired teen, who overcame a hardscrabble childhood in the working-class outskirts of Boston, may be the next pop princess in a long line descending from Britney Spears and Christina Aguilera, but she says her music is aimed at a broader audience.
“I am not doing bubble-gum pop. This is real music that is not just for teens, or for young kids or for older people — it is for everybody,” JoJo told Reuters.
“Age is nothing but a number,” says JoJo, described by Teen People magazine as “the female Justin Timberlake,” and hailed by the Washington Post as “pop music’s latest and littlest new star.”
The 14-track album features her full-blooded, sassy voice and influences ranging from soul to hip-hop, and from reggae to dance — an eclecticism she has shown since winning attention as a grade school performer on a Bill Cosby-hosted kids TV show.
She followed that with appearances on talk shows such as Oprah Winfrey and at music festivals. A losing appearance on TV talent show “America’s Most Talented Kids” won the attention of record producers and she was signed to a multi-album deal by Blackground, a subsidiary of Vivendi’s Universal Records.
Accustomed now to life on the road, she opens on tour for rapper Usher before crowds of up to 20,000, and she carries herself with a certain panache.
JoJo says her humble beginnings made her hungry for success. She and her divorced mother Diana, who serves as her manager, shared a one-bedroom apartment in Foxboro, Massachusetts, and money was tight.
“My friends could go to the mall and the movies and I couldn’t,” said JoJo. “I had hand-me-downs and shopped at Wal-Mart and K-Mart ... but I am grateful that I never lived in a shelter.”
Music, however, was always part of her life.
Her mother, who cleaned houses to make ends meet, was a soloist in the church choir and JoJo grew up listening to her records and imitating the likes of Aretha Franklin, Ella Fitzgerald, George Benson, Bob Segar and The Beatles.
JoJo wrote lyrics to three of her album cuts, touching on themes of love, friendship and the struggle to find happiness.
In “Yes or No” she sings to a would-be boyfriend, “If you could stop playing games then maybe my feelings would change.”
In “Keep On Keepin’ On” she recounts the grittier aspects of her younger days. “This is about going through hard times, growing up more on the poor side but knowing there is a light at the end of the tunnel,” she says.
JoJo spent four months recording cuts for the album in New York, Miami and Los Angeles, and after returning to New York for her album launch she set off again for a second leg of a European tour.
Touring is a professional chore, she says. “There is not a lot of parties and late nights, especially for me being under 21. It’s mainly just hard work.”