JOJO

Singer, songwriter, actress

In the mid-2000s a bevy of young, female singers, including Ashlee Simpson (1984–) and Hilary Duff (1987–), comfortably dominated the music charts. The youngest member of the growing pack was a supreme talent out of Massachusetts named Joanna Levesque, better known to fans as JoJo. Belting out tunes since she was two years old, JoJo caught the attention of industry executives and celebrities with her unusual vocal range and mature song-stylings. Her self-titled debut album, which included a unique blend of soulful ballads and catchy dance tunes, zoomed up the charts throughout 2004. Her hit singles, "Leave (Get Out)" and "Baby, It's You," received constant airplay on the radio and MTV. Both the album and JoJo received a slew of award nominations, and the singer broke a number of records, including becoming the youngest solo artist after Stevie Wonder (c. 1950–) to have a number-one hit in the United States.

Musical mom and dad

Joanna Noelle Levesque (pronounced luh-VEK), better known as JoJo, was born on December 20, 1990, in Foxboro, Massachusetts, a tiny town with a population of less than fifteen thousand, located in the outskirts of Boston. The Levesque home was filled with music: JoJo's father was a blues singer, and her mother, Diane, had a background in musical theater and was a church soloist. One of the teen's earliest memories is watching her mother perform in the choir and practice hymns at home. As she told Know Your World Extra, "I just listened and learned."

JoJo's life changed when she was four years old and her parents divorced. She went to live with her mother in a one-bedroom apartment and the pair often struggled to make ends meet. Diane Levesque took on cleaning jobs to make sure that her daughter would not go without, but the young singer always felt different from her friends, who seemed to have so much more. In just a few years, however, she would use those early memories to pen one of the songs on her first album.

One of America's most talented

By the time she was six, JoJo had outgrown performing in her living room and she auditioned for the CBS television program Kids Say the Darndest Things, which was broadcasting on the

" Age is just a number."

road from Boston. She wowed the show's producers, who immediately gave her a spot. The tiny six-year-old faced a packed studio audience and fearlessly belted out an astonishing rendition of Aretha Franklin's "Respect." The show's host Bill Cosby (1937–) was practically speechless and members of the audience gave JoJo a thunderous round of applause. Not long after, the little girl with the powerful voice received a phone call from executives of The Oprah Winfrey Show, asking JoJo to appear on an upcoming episode.

Thanks to the endorsement by talk show host Oprah Winfrey (1954–), offers began to pour in for JoJo to appear on various television programs and to perform at an assortment of live venues, including a Boston Celtics basketball game and the Republican National Convention. Her big break, however, came in 2003 while performing on America's Most Talented Kids, a televised talent program that showcased entertainers under the age of fifteen. A member of the audience introduced her to Vincent Herbert, producer and owner of Da Family Entertainment, who signed the teen songstress to a recording contract with Blackground Records.

Just a few months after her thirteenth birthday, JoJo traveled with her mother between New York, Miami, and Los Angeles to record tracks for her first album. She had the opportunity to work closely with well-known Blackground producers as Soulshock … Karlin, Mike City, and The Underdogs, who had been previously associated with established performers including Whitney Houston (1963–), Ruben Studdard (1978–), and Aaliyah (1979–2001). "Everyone had such an incredible vibe," JoJo explained on her Web site, "and that comes through in the songs." When discussing her studio experience, however, JoJo's less serious side also tended to creep into interviews. As she told Danielle Oberdier of Time for Kids, "It's fun working with producers because we have secret handshakes and we eat junk food and it's like family."

Keeps on keepin' on

In addition to singing on the album, JoJo wrote three of the tracks: "Yes or No," "Sunshine," and "Keep On Keepin' On," which the young singer claims is her favorite. "Keep On" may be her favorite because it deals with growing up poor but still knowing there is hope. In her interview with Oberdier, JoJo opened up and explained how she came to write the song: "I was sitting by the pool where I live now, thinking 'Well, I didn't always have a pool to sit by. It wasn't always good like this.' So I was thinking that it can't be bad for so long, because I grew up poor. Things will get better soon so you have to Keep On Keepin' On."

The remaining songs on the album are an eclectic mix of soulful ballads, such as "Use My Shoulder," which show off JoJo's five-octave range; party jams like "City Lights"; and catchy pop numbers like "The Happy Song." JoJo insisted that the variety was intentional and that the CD would appeal to listeners of all ages. In interviews she bristled at being labeled a pop princess and adamantly denied that her album was intended just for teenagers. "I am not doing bubblegum pop," she told Know Your World Extra. "This is real music that is not just for young kids or for older people. It is for everybody."

When JoJo's self-titled album was released on June 24, 2004, it received mixed reviews, with most critics commenting understandably on the tender age of the singer. Chuck Arnold of People observed that the thirteen-year-old "has yet to really grow into her big voice," and that "she may still be a little young to play with the big girls." But, he also noted that "she's no average JoJo," and that the first single released from the album, "Leave (Get Out)," with its "sassy girl-power lyrics" was truly a guilty pleasure. Raymond Fiore of Entertainment Weekly offered up a similar review. While he criticized JoJo for her over-the-top deliveries, he also commented that her CD was "brimming with sizzling hooks" and that the songstress "exhibited remarkable promise."

JoJo's prediction that her CD would appeal to a wide audience proved true. Fans snapped up her CD, which quickly cracked the Billboard Top 20 and remained there through the end of 2004, ultimately peaking at number four. The single "Leave (Get Out)" reached number-one on the charts, and the video was a staple on MTV's Total Request Live during the summer and fall of 2004 and was the most requested video for months. As a result, JoJo was nominated for an MTV Video