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Singer who performs in Akron on Saturday makes the big jump to big company Verve
By Malcolm X Abram
Beacon Journal music writer
Published on Thursday, Jul 31, 2008
The record business is in a transformative free fall.
Many lesser known artists realize that the old creaky major label system isn't necessarily the E-ticket to the big time it once was. Many major artists who benefited from that old system are striking out on their own, or doing 360-degree deals or exclusive releases with nonlabels, such as LiveNation and Wal-Mart.
But there are still established indie artists who are finding that the jump to the majors can be a useful career move.
Ledisi Anibade Young is a singer/songwriter born in New Orleans and based in California who will be performing at Lock 3 Park on Saturday. Ledisi, who goes by her first name, has spent spent years plying her trade as an adult-jazz-inflected contemporary R&B artist and is co-owner of her own label, LeSun, with her songwriting and business partner Sundra Manning. LeSun (http://www.lesunmusic.com/) released Ledisi's first two albums, the hip-hop and acid jazz-flavored Soulsinger in 2001 and the more jazzy/contemporary R&B sounds of Feeling Orange But Sometimes Blue in 2002. Through word of mouth and good old-fashioned hustle, the albums gained some attention
Both those albums are currently out of print. But they brought Ledisi (Yoruba — a West Africa language — for ''to bring forth'') a dedicated fan base among music fans who don't rely on hip-hop and R&B radio to tell them what they like. The albums also helped spread Ledisi's name throughout the industry, bringing her opportunities to work with artists such as Third Eye Blind, pianist Omar Sosa, Latin jazz percussionist Pancho Sanchez, smooth jazz saxophonist Boney James, and producer/former Tony! Toni! Tone! singer Raphael Saadiq. She was even adopted as a goddaughter by Quincy Jones after performing at a televised PBS tribute to Ella Fitzgerald.
But all that professional activity and independent label hustle didn't help make her a household word until she signed with veteran jazz label Verve, which released her Lost & Found in 2007. The 16-track album is filled with her big expressive voice, smooth R&B grooves and songs all co-written by Ledisi that touch on love, staying strong in the face of adversity and more love.
The album, made largely with producer/musician/songwriter Rex Rideout (Luther Vandross, Angie Stone, Will Downing, Lalah Hathaway), goes down smoothly, with tracks such as the bouncy, upbeat tunes Alright and new single Joy getting fingers snapping and toes tapping. It also includes a few late-night ballads, In the Morning and We Are One, a duet with singer/songwriter Rahsaan Patterson.
The album, released last August, has been a hit for Ledisi, garnering her multiple television appearances and two Grammy nominations for Best R&B album and Best New Artist. Though she no longer needs to stuff her own envelopes and spend any profits on her label and trying to get her music heard, success brings a brand new set of trials and tribulations, expectations and personal and professional learning experiences. She said she's enjoying every minute of it.
''(With) the Grammy nominations and everything, all the shows have been sold out in places I've never been, where I think no one knows me, but they do. And I'm learning the power of radio and the press. I'm learning a lot that if you keep doing your best, people will come and appreciate you,'' she said from her Bay Area home during a brief break in her busy schedule.
''I find it's more pressure to execute a great show and to execute great music, but I really do like this job, so I better keep it going. Before I was more laid back and I did what I wanted to when I wanted to, and I'm still kind of laid back, but I feel a bunch of fire up my butt, for lack of a better term,'' she said, laughing.
After years of subsisting on packaged noodles, playing gigs with a grand total take-home pay of $30, sleeping on floors in New York and nearly giving up and becoming a teacher, she is able to truly appreciate each new level in her rising career.
''I signed with Verve because I could not keep up the demand of being an independent artist, being a business person and getting on stage and shipping out CDs. It was just too much, and all the money just kept going towards taking care of that process,'' she said.
''In the independent world, I was pretty popular and had people looking up to me, but it's a lot of work that I couldn't maintain. It was just two people doing the job of 30 or more and that's not right.''
Though she had passed on contract offers from labels, but Verve offered her what no other label did.
''I had already started on my album Lost & Found before that, and when it came to the part of control, no one told me what to do creatively,'' she said.
''It's fun having the resources to execute the kind of music I want to execute, and the imagery, and [to] be myself. I'm happy to be under a label that lets me, and most labels don't let you do that. I know because I went to several and most labels started with, 'You need to be a size 2.' ''
Her newfound success has culminated with the Grammy nominations, and though the one for Best New Artist seemed ironic for someone who was on her third album, she said that in some ways the designation fits.
''It's kind of like graduation. You graduate from one thing to another, so all of this level of mainstream success is new to me,'' she said.
''There are still people who don't know how to say my name (LED-duh-see), or how important the name is. It's all new. I'm behind a new level of curtains, so each door that has opened has been crazy, so to me I am new because it's all new to me.''
She has plenty more crazy new experiences coming this year. Wednesday night, she was scheduled to appear on the Tonight Show with Jay Leno, singing with South American easy-listening maestro Sergio Mendes. In September, she will perform in the one-act musical Once On This Island in Los Angeles (she's also appeared in the George Clooney football comedy Leatherheads) and later in the fall, she will release her first, still untitled Christmas album.
But before all that activity she will bring her gregarious on- and offstage personality to Lock 3 Park.
''It's my first time (in the area) and I'm praying that they'll receive me. I am such an audience groupie, it's pathetic. I love my audience because it won't work without both of us. It's really cool, man, when they sing back at you and they're singing [the song] with the same conviction, like they wrote the song,'' she said. ''That's the coolest thing in the world.''
Malcolm X Abram can be reached at mabram@thebeaconjournal.com or 330-996-3758.
The record business is in a transformative free fall.
Get the full article here.
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