Ciara wants to set something straight. The hit-making dynamo — known for her hot moves and sexy tomboy style — is flattered by all those comparisions to Janet Jackson and the late Aaliyah, but she’s not a copycat. She’s doing her own thing.
“I do feel like we’re all different,” she told The Associated Press in a recent interview. “You know, it’s funny, because people will say, ‘She’s trying to be like her,’ but I’m saying to myself, like, ‘I’m trying to do me.”’
After the success of her mutliplatinum, Grammy-nominated debut, “Goodies,” Ciara was determined to put even more of herself into her follow-up CD, “Ciara: The Evolution.” She co-wrote each song and also helped produce many of them.
“I’ve evolved,” she said. “I am still the person I am at core — the tomboy that’s still in me hasn’t left. You know, but everything is just going somewhere else, and it’s growing. And it’s really fun.”
The 21-year-old singer-songwriter first sprung onto the pop charts with her “Goodies” two years ago. When she first broke out with the crunk-infused, Lil’ Jon track “Goodies,” some dismissed her as a one-hit wonder — a pretty face with a slight, sweet voice and precision dance moves, the latest in a long lineup of Janet wannabes.
But the hits didn’t stop there, forcing people to begin taking her seriously as a legitimate artist. The album went on to sell more than two million copies and was nominated for four Grammys.
“It was a fun process for me,” she said. “But it was also cool to see people (who) may have said, you know, ‘Well, whatever’ — just brush you off — and then you see them later and it’s a totally different story.”
Teaming up with top producers
For her sophomore album, she collaborated with some of music’s hottest producers — The Neptunes, will.i.am and Rodney Jerkins, to name a few — and 50 Cent and Chamillionaire make cameos. The result is a beat-driven mix of clubby dance numbers and sultry grooves: It’s the same Ciara sound, she said, just “intensified.”
It’s already spawned two hits: the funky club track “Get Up” and the sexy slow jam “Promise.”
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Celebrity Sightings
“It’s more energetic,” she said. “It’s to, like, the 10th power. That’s what I really wanted to be and I really went hard to make that happen. Even with us being in the studio we would dance around, we would do everything. ... I would have so much fun.”
Though the studio was brimming with male hotshots providing the beats, Ciara said she was inspired by “girl talks” she had with friends while making the album. Her songs, she said, became “much more real and relatable” — like the track “Like A Boy,” in which she wishes she could “switch up the roles” and give a boyfriend a dose of his own medicine.
Could that guy in question be her ex-beau, Bow Wow? (For those who don’t follow these hip-hop hookups: Ciara and the 19-year-old rapper called it quits last spring after dating for nearly a year.)
Does she want to talk about it? No. Would she date a famous guy again? “Never say never,” she said.
“If you’re a great person and you’re a confident man and you’re a really sweet guy — and you have it together and you just so happen to be a celebrity, it is what it is,” she said. “If you have all those characteristics and you’re a doctor, it is what it is.”
Single and not ready to mingleThese days, she’s single and not-so-ready to mingle. “I’m focused on my music,” she said. She just wants to have fun, she said, and that includes ignoring wild rumors that began circulating when she first made a name for herself. People were saying that she was dating Elliott, who rapped on Ciara’s No. 1 hit “1, 2 Step,” and that she was a really a man.
“I’ve heard a lot of crazy things, and I feel like it’s something that comes with the territory ... Being in the entertainment industry is just high school to me all over again,” she said.
She was popular at her high school, she said, so she’s used to being talked about. “I think it’s amazing to see what people will think of,” she said. “For people to even mention your name, it’s all good.”
It could be argued that the the self-described “tomboy” was such a gossip target because, like the enigmatic Elliott, she’s a bit hard to figure out. Her idols are the two Michaels — Jackson and Jordan. No public diva fits or beefs with other singers. No overtly sexy get-ups (“I rock my sweatpants,” she said).
Maybe she IS like a boy. But, then again, she has girl talks, long, shiny hair and two small dogs (maltipoos Ali and Tyson).
The Texas-born singer (born Ciara Harris) is also mighty ambitious. She wants to “sell more and more millions of records,” make more “great music videos,” start up a record label, do a fashion line. She even founded a dance agency in Atlanta.
“I used to say I wanted to be a combination of P. Diddy and Oprah, and I’ll call that person Poprah,” said Ciara, laughing.
“But more than anything my ultimate goal is to really — to be a successful businesswoman and the ultimate, ultimate goal is to become a billionaire. I believe it’s possible.”