Watch her Fly
Interview conducted/Written By: Raven Ekundayo
Photography By: Quill Wordsmith

Janice B and I met in 2009. Listening to us talk you would never get the impression that we just met. One might even assume it’s been years. It’s the Scorpio bond we share. She and I worked towards this interview for awhile but neither of our schedules ever seemed to want to make room. In December we finally met at Barnes & Noble at The Inner Harbor in downtown Baltimore to have a talk about how she started singing, how she started performing professionally and how she had the faith to take it to the next level. So check it out Misfits, Janice B’s eXclusive interview with ETM.

Raven – I know you’re from Washington, DC. I also know that you’ve been singing since you were a little kid. So how did the singing come about? Are there singers in your family?

Janice – My mom sings. My grandmother plays piano and sang in a band. I’ve been singing since I was little but not really out there singing, not professional. I think that when everyone in your family already does that naturally; unless they're already out there performing and making money from it, it’s not really something you think about. My mom sang in the church, I sang in the shower. You know?

Raven – (Laughs) the shower. Silly.

Janice – (Laughs) But in school I was in the chorus. I’ve always been involved in music and entertainment of some kind. It didn’t really hit me that this is something I could do, or that I could write. The writing part was a whole different factor. I’ve written since I was younger, like poems. But I never put poetry and music together, even though I always have songs in my head. It makes no sense. (Laughs). luminoUS has told me that as a writer she always has a script going through her head, you know, like a narrative, and that’s how I am. It’s always a song. It may not make sense (laughs).

Raven – Has it always been that way or did it happen at a certain age?

Janice – It think it has always been that way. I’ve always made songs like that but I think because I’ve always done it I didn’t I didn’t really know that was weird or that I was strange (Laughs).

Raven – (Laughs)

Janice – But yeah, I think it’s always been that way. I just think as I get older it starts to come together.

Raven – Coolage. So I noticed that the musical lineage is on your mother’s side of the family.

Janice – Yup.

Raven – That’s cool. It’s real “Charmed”. Real witch like. Lol.

Janice – It is! I didn’t think about that (Laughs).

Raven – The power is all through the females (Laughs)

Janice – My mother was a big influence but my grandmother put that performing spark in me. She would have me stand by the piano when I was little and ask me what do I want to sing…..

Raven – How old were you at the time?

Janice – Three.

Raven – Wow!

Janice – I would say something and she’d play it. It could be a commercial jingle or something from a cartoon. She played by ear so she could do all of it. She got me singing. She would walk with me through the snow and sing Christmas carols and stuff like that. I think it helped the fear barrier of singing in public. You know? I know when I was a teenager I would be embarrassed because my mom and I would be walking through the store and she would be singing.

Raven – Wow! She was singing in the store? (Laughs)

Janice – Yeah! And now I do it. And now Alex (Her son) is going to be telling me, “Mom please shut up”.

Raven – I think that would be really cool if…I mean the lineage is cool but it would be great if he could break it; if he was the first male in the family to sing.

Janice – Well he loves music, but I think most babies do so we’ll see what happens.

Raven – How old is Alex?

Janice – He turned one on December 1st.

Raven – Lord, a Sagittarius.

Janice – Yes the ONLY Sagittarius. He will definitely break the lineage. He’s the only Sagittarius in the entire family.

Raven – Wow. He’s starting off already (Laughs). Ok, ok we’re getting off topic (Laughs).

Janice – See how I do (Laughs) I could flip and say “Raven, where were you born?” (Laughs)

Raven – Yes, flip it (Laughs). So what was it like growing up in DC?

Janice – Well I was born in DC but we moved out of DC when I was like two. I actually grew up in a suburb of DC; around the Oxon Hill (MD) area. I think it was a really good eXperience for me. It was a time….I’m about to say how old I am when I do this (Laughs). It was a time when music was really evolving. I’m not going to say it doesn’t always evolve but in elementary school we’re talking about Ohio Players and those kinds of groups. Hip Hop and Rap and all those things kind of came out. I eXperienced those things, so I think that was a big benefit for me. My mom was somebody who doesn’t put any restrictions on music. Anything I wanted to listen to….

Raven – She would let you? That’s cool.

Janice – You know back then it was 45s and they were like 50 cents (Laughs). Lord have mercy, delete that (Laughs)

Raven – (Laughs loud)

Janice – I would be like “I wanna get the Ohio Players” and she would be like “Ok”. There were no parental warnings or things like that on what I could hear.

Raven – So you had a very liberal mom?

Janice – Oh nooooo. Not at all. Both of my parents are very conservative.

Raven – She was just liberal with music?

Janice – Yeah, she was very open minded when it came to music. So we heard Roberta Flack in the house, Frank Sinatra, anybody you could possibly think of.

Raven – That’s some good diversity.

Janice – Yeah. I think that really influenced me growing up. Of course being in the DC area there was Go Go. I was listening to Chuck Brown when I was in junior high. Oop! Rewind! I was two when I was in Junior High….

Raven – HA!!!! For the record! (Laughs)

Janice – Right. It’s ok. I’m old. It’s ok (Laughs)

Raven – Lord (Laughs). She when did you reach a point when singing around the neighborhood was no longer enough for you?

Janice – That didn’t happen until my 30s.

Raven – Really? Wow.

Janice – I haven’t been at this point for that long. It was 2002 when I started. That was the year of the first song we recorded.

Raven – So what was it like from Middle School until 30?

Janice – Insanity! (Laughs) Honestly, I really felt like something was missing out of my life. I didn’t really know what it was. It was like “Duh” (Laughs). I was doing other artistic things like drawn and stuff. I knew I wanted to do something creative but I wasn’t aware that I had the talent to make songs. I use to write poems but I don’t consider myself a poet at all. I’m a much better song writer. I don’t think poets are good song writers and vice versa. Just because you write a good poem doesn’t mean it’s going to be a song. There’s a different process. Writing songs just comes to me naturally. I’m a better baseball player that I am a poet (bursts out laughing)

Raven – Wow! Misfits you will never meet anyone so gifted who continually puts themselves down like this woman. Stop that (Laughs)

Janice – I’ve very critical of my work.

Raven – Understatement (Laughs)

Janice – Whether it’s drawing a portrait or anything else, it’s never ever done to me. I can draw a portrait and you can think it’s amazing and I’ll think “No, it’s not right”. You have to take it away from me because I’ll keep picking at it. I’m learning more discipline now thanks to Stinkiface music. I’m learning how to let go of control which is difficult for me and Scorpio’s in general.

Raven – Amen.

Janice – So I met a co-worker, Earl Ross, who had given me a cd of instrumentals that he’d put together. One of them just completely flipped me. I had a song written in an hour. I’d never done that before (Laughs). So we recorded that song and put a band together.

Raven – What was the name of the band?

Janice – Intuition.

Raven – Oh ok.

Janice – We performed around town in spots like Hard Rock (Café) and places like that. We were together for five years. There were different variations of the band.

Raven – Coolage. So what type of music did you guys play?

Janice – A little bit of everything. It was mostly Neo-Soul but it was a real mix. Sade, India.Arie, Jill Scott and then we would flip it into someone like Dido or someone else. We liked mixing it up. We had a male vocalist and female vocalist. Sometimes I would sing a Seal song and sometimes he would sing India.Arie.

Raven – That’s hot.

Janice – That whole eXperience was great for me and I’m not putting it down but when you work with seven people and if you’re a creative control freak it’s just not going to happen.  He [Earl] and I were in control of the songs that we were writing but I needed to break free of that. There were songs that I wanted to do that he didn’t have time to do or didn’t want to do. I just felt like I have this loyalty to the band and to him because if he hadn’t given me the cd with the music on it I may not have been writing songs. That’s the way I look at everything in my life. I’m very indebted to my friends. This can be a bad thing sometimes because in some instances you need to let go of things that are done. This isn’t saying your friendships done; you just need to move on….

Raven – You just need to move on. Amen all over that.

Janice – It’s a lesson I’m learning. It’s hard for me.

Raven – Is that in all areas of your life?

Janice – Yeah. Unless you like really do me wrong or hurt my mother or something. Then I can cut you off real quick (Laughs). As far as like moving on and leaving people behind it’s difficult. I went through a year and half of being in the band and thinking that I really needed to do my own thing. Meeting people on myspace is what changed that. I started talking to (Jazz Artist) Brian O’Neal and he said “You have a different character to your voice. Your writing style is really good. You don’t need the band.” He said “I’m not telling you to leave the band, but you can do these things outside the band. You need to do these things and not let anybody stop you.” Having someone in the business, a professional performer saying that, and he has nothing to gain from saying it really gave it come validity to me. That’s when I was ready to go after it. I’m sure you’ve seen this. When you want to do things with your life that will move you upward people will attempt to hold you down.

Raven – Yes mam.

Janice – People will smile in your face and were your friends and would do anything for you will be the first one to stomp on your dreams.

Raven – Sad but very true.

Janice – And it can be subtle things. They’ll say that your voice doesn’t sound good singing that song.  They’ll say you’re too old to do this.

Raven – Wow.

Janice – Those things hurt.

Raven – Yeah.

Janice – Even though I might be hurt by things I always get through it. That’s something inside of me that keeps the creative fires burning and that’s why I’m here now. (Laughs)

Raven – How about that?

Janice – Once you act it out and once you speak it, what you want will come to you. That’s been the case for me all my life.

Raven – Ok, so let’s eXcape the matriX a bit. So I’m looking at you right now and you have brown eyes. Now you’re Caucasian and you sing soul music yet your eyes are brown not blue. So I would like to ask you…Janice B, what are your feelings on what is called “Blue eyed soul”?

Want to know what Janice B thinks of “Blue eyed soul”? What to know what she thinks of white folks who think they can talk about Black people around her and her shock at the things Black people will say about white people but then say they aren’t racist? Want to know how she feels about Stinkiface Music? Check back next month for the conclusion to the Janice B interview.

 

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