SHONTELLE EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW
CHAMP MAGAZINE
The Boy Hollywood
CHAMP: I wanted to start off by getting a brief background on a music aspect, in terms of who were some of your influences when growing up?
Shontelle: When I was growing up I was influenced by everyone from local artists at home doing their soca music and calypso and stuff like that all the way to Bob Marley, Michael Jackson, Whitney Houston, Mary J Blige, The Fugees. I really loved all kinds of music when I was growing up, ‘cause at the same time, I was like listening to Mariah Carey, Brtiney Spears (lol), Madonna and Destiny’s Child. I went through a lot of phases I know.
CHAMP: Where in the US of A do you hail from?
Shonetelle: I’m originally from Barbados, but I live in New York right now.
CHAMP: When did you get the singing bug? Caught from birth?
Shontelle: (Lol). I think…I don’t know maybe I was born with it lol A lot of people in my family can sing really well, so it might be just genetic.Practice makes better.
CHAMP: In terms of people who have heard you already, are there often comparisons you and a particular artist when they hear you for the first time?
Shontelle: Sometimes. I guess that happens with any new artist. You tend to hear a new voice and because you don’t know who this person is you say “who does this person remind you of?”. It’s usually common to hear certain inflections that remind you of different artists. For example: People say the Ne-Yo sounds like Michael Jackson, and when Rihanna first came out they were tryna compare her to Beyonce, so sometimes people listen to me and they say “oh you sound like a combination of Beyonce, Rihanna, and Mary J Blige” or something like that lol and I’m like ok!They’re all ladies that went straight to the top so that’s cool. I guess that happens because sometimes people compare me to Lauryn Hill depending on what song it is.
CHAMP: Do you ever take that as a compliment or do you always wanna distinguish your own sound and separate from those successful artists and things like that?
Shontelle” Oh yeah! Absolutely. Eventually when a new artist comes out they’ll go through that. Ciara was compared to Janet a lot, but eventually you do start to grow into yourself more and then you want more people to listen to your music and realize that there is a kind of uniqueness to this person, even though I can see where their influence may have come from. I definitely wanna get to that point where there’s less comparison and they’ll actually be a point where a new artist will come out and say that girl reminds me of Shontelle.
CHAMP: As an artist, how do you feel about the transition an artist makes in terms of being recognized for their talent initially but then the focus eventually changes to their image to make them more marketable?
Shontelle: There’s definitely a lot of pressure where that’s concerned. There’s the personal pressure because you know you feel like ok you wanna do certain shows, and you wanna get nominated for this or that and if you’re not at certain shows or not making a certain amount of money, or not getting this endorsement or that endorsement. In the great grand scheme of things, it seems as if you may not be as successful as another artist who’s very marketable and has all the endorsements and all that. There is that pressure just personally of feeling like where do I stand in the grand scheme of things. You might be looking at your record sales or spins, and if you’re not number two or number one on the charts, then you know, it feels like what am I doing?
CHAMP: You’re with Universal. When and how did that happen?
Shontelle: First of all, I mean, it’s unbelievable to me that I’m on that label because that’s where I wanted to be. I had all these dreams and you think about all your favorite stars and what labels they’re on and your like where would I wanna be? So I was like I wanna be with those Motown artists and Stevie Wonder and I wanted to be on Universal/Motown. I couldn’t believe it when SRP (which is my in house production company) came and picked me up from Barbados and we put together my demo. The reason that happened was because I wrote a song called “Roll”, which was performed by Allison Hines and this became so huge. I had no idea that was going to happen and they ended up hearing it and they were like “who wrote this song?” and they couldn’t believe it was some girl from Barbados so they were like “Wow we have to meet this girl”. They finally found me and then I met them in the studio one day and I thought they wanted to talk about my songwriting, but they kinda like put me on the spot and brought out the guitar and they were like “sing for us”. I started singing and by the end of the meeting they wanted to sign a production deal with me and make some demos and see if I can get signed. I couln’t believe it when I got the news that Universal was interested so we go to the meeting with Steve Rifkind of SRC records on Universal. When I met him I knew he was the greatest guy on the planet. He knows the game and he knows what he’s doing. I was looking at his roster of artists and I’m like ok Akons on here and if you can break Akon you can break anyone so this guy was it. He told me either I was going to sleep there or give him a verbal agreement that you won’t go anywhere else because he was going to have a proposal for me to sign on the table tomorrow. By the time I’d wake up in the morning my contract was ready.
CHAMP: Now the album Shontelligence. What was the message you were trying to send with that album?
Shontelle: One of the first things I wanted people to know the same way you can get two artists from Atlanta that are totally different don’t assume that because me and Rihanna are both from Barbados that we’re the same. I wanted people to be able to listen to my music and see that I am a unique artist. Me and Ri are from the same place and have collaborated before but we’re definitely different people. That was one of the first things I wanted to prove and I also wanted to show there’s a lot of talent from the Caribbean.
CHAMP: Currently what projects are you working on?
Shontelle: Aside from the album, I worked on the Confessions of a Shopaholic soundtrack with Akon called “Stuck With Each Other”.People loved that song so much that my album was repacked to put “Stuck With Each Other” on it.Other than that I am the face of this brand called Feet. It’s a line of hair removal products and that’s pretty much what I got going other than my music and songwriting.
CHAMP: When can the fans expect you in Toronto?
STUCK WITH EACH OTHER - SHONTELLE FT. AKON
