Jem
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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