They never met, but
she did eventually meet with somebody that actually knew the
great man. With these encounters and Jem's optimistic view of
life I asked whether she believed that these things were fate?
"I do believe in some sort of fate to a degree and I think
that you can create your own destiny too and yet you can make
it happen as well. Like, put it this way, if I'd just sat at
home, nobody was going to come knocking at my door, saying 'Would
you like a record deal?' And if that had happened it had to
be fate y'know? But yeah definitely how I got my record deal
was weird. If I hadn't done the dishes that morning and heard
this radio station and gone there and dropped the CD there,
who knows? And my A&R guy just happened to be listening
that day, then it's kind of weird I guess."
Her producers on the album are Yoad Nevo and Ge-ology. The latter
having
put his magic touch on Mos Def's album, 'The New Danger.' So
did these collaborations also come via strange instances?
"I met Ge-ology in 2001 through another weird
thing," she explains. "When I got to New York, (after
an unsuccessful attempt at getting a deal here) a business acquaintance
of my manager, it was his son's godfather, is Ge-ology's lawyer.
Something really weird like that! With Yoad it was very fluky
again. Maybe it is a fate thing? I was supposed to be working
with someone else and they kept cancelling on me. Eventually
the manager said, 'Oh, maybe Jem should go in with Yoad?’
So I went in and knew immediately that he was
the one."
Listen to the album and you hear an undercurrent of Hip-Hop
beats that lay the foundation for the strong hooks, grabbing
your attention and making your head nod the second you hear
them. Combine that with Jem's luscious voice, the perfectly
positioned string arrangements and the sprinkle of samples make
the album a sure fire winner for all musical palettes. So what
does Jem think the elements that made her song's so catchy?
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