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This young songstress has already turned heads with her debut single ‘I Changed My Mind’. Several years after getting her first break with MC Hammer, the Oakland, California native is now getting her time to shine.
Hyped
for being a “real” urban singer currently performing within
the elite US hip hop circle, is Keyshia
Cole. Her ascent to her current status as a credible artist
by way of rising through the ranks with intense determination at a formidable
speed has seen her achieve her major label debut at a mere 21 years of
age.
Growing up in the poorest part of the Bay Area in California, living in Oakland has served to be an inspiration to make a career in the music industry and have a better life. Her determination was apparent before she was a teenager when she stalked fellow Bay Area resident, MC Hammer to record with him, and found herself reaching a desired goal of singing hooks on his album. “I actually called his studio a million times until they let me meet him. Yeah, then I’ve been knowing him ever since. Yeah he’s cool. He’s a real cool dude.”
Yet, working with MC Hammer and still in the Bay Area as a teenager did not bring immediate success, “[Work was] Slow and [I was] broke. Growin’ and learning stuff, I didn’t have a lot of work in Oakland. A little bit but not a lot, really.”
Conversely, growing up and forging a career in Oakland is what sets her apart from other songstresses, even preparing her for life in the unforgiving music industry. “Music people got me prepared for the business. I grew up with people in Oakland that tried to take advantage of me, but I never signed any contracts with anybody or anything like that until I got to Interscope. So I was pretty smart on that side of the deal but there was a lot of situations like that that prepared me for the situations to come.”
The situations that were to come happened in 2001, when she found herself with some high profile work in the Bay Area. As a background singer, she contributed on Messy Mary’s Nubian Queen Remix and she featured on Tony! Toni! Toné! member, Dwayne Wiggins’ soundtrack to his film, ‘Me & Mrs Jones’.
Her turning point began when she moved to Los Angeles, after she found that her then-boyfriend had cheated on her. She used her determination and single minded focus, not to mention her talents as a singer, to garner the support of label big wig, A&M President, Ron Fair, “I wrote a song called ‘Love’ and he heard a verse and a chorus and said, ‘Lets do it! She’s great!’” laughs Keyshia.
Today, with a debut album laid down, her dreams have come true. She is now a working member of the urban elite, a goal she has spent her life pursuing, but the realities of her current professional status has been another learning experience. “It was more than what I expected it to be... more hard work, more dedication, you really gotta be focused.”
Yet the creative rewards have been numerous. To name a few of the producers and artists she has worked with is like reading the contents page of The Source Magazine. Her debut album entitled ‘The Way It Is’ features collaborations with…
Kanye West: “We were in the studio, I was in one studio and he was in the other, and he heard some stuff that I was doing and he ask me to get on his album and he wanted to do some stuff for my album. He believed in himself, you know what I’m saying, he believed in himself a lot. He just taught me a lot -- friendship, honesty, truth. He gave me a lot of inspiration.”
E Poppi : “Errol did ‘We Can Be’ and he did ‘Never’. I did the Luther Vandross remix [of ‘Never’] for the ‘Barbershop 2’ soundtrack. Yeah, he’s a wonderful producer. He did ‘Dangerously in Love’. Yeah, he’s real cool. He’s a real cool talented dude. Inspiring.”
Mya: “We have mutual friends. She actually already did a chorus for a song and I liked it, so I wrote the verses to it and I laid ‘em. Yeah, yeah, she cool too.”
As a future collaboration, however, Keyshia has her determined sights set on other urban diva, Brandy. “I would like to work with Brandy. Wonderful vocals and she’s very talented. When I first started singing she was one of the people I looked up to.”
However, Cole is a different breed of singer; her image is tough, her lyrics are real and as she sashays up the street or swivels on the car of Kanye West in the video clip to her new single, ‘I Changed My Mind’, she carries a charisma of one of the meanest local girls on your street. Cole is “street” while her lyrics encompass everyday events that happen to the ordinary girl, whether it is about a boyfriend cheating or a girlfriend’s back stabbing. However, talking to Cole, she gives the impression that she isn’t necessarily a bully or someone from the projects of whom to be wary, but rather she is “one of the girls” who has had some tough experiences.
Today in LA, her favourite things to do are boringly normal, “[I] just relax most of the time, watching TV or something.” Clubbing is not a pastime, she states. “I have to do that. That’s part of my job.” And asking Cole what effect living in star laden Tinsel Town has had on her life, she answers simply, “Let’s see. Umm, a lot of financial stability.” She laughs. “It’s cool. Security.”
Fortunately for her art, her integrity is what makes her different from the polished Beyoncés, Myas, and Brandys that are also her contemporaries, and her integrity makes for something refreshing as she describes what she wants to bring to the urban genre. “I want to bring back the realness of life. I just wanna be me and I go through everyday situations like everyone else, and I don’t want to be somebody who tries to cover that up.”
Keyshia Cole’s debut album, ‘The Way It Is’, is due to hit the US shelves early this year and her single ‘I Changed My Mind’ has already been released in the States. However, despite her career going from strength to strength as she lives her dream, Cole understands that she is in the circle of successful artists and knows how to inspire those who are in the position she was in a couple of years ago as a struggling artist in Oakland, “Yep. All you can do is live life and stay focused and be determined to get to what you know you want to achieve. As far as your goals, be determined to reach ‘em because they can be reached.” A reality Keyshia Cole has lived and achieved.
Look out for Keyshia Cole’s
debut single ‘I Changed My Mind’
and her forthcoming album, ‘The Way It Is’, on A&M Records
soon.
