32 HIPHOP//RNB


THE GUESTLIST NETWORK | FEBRUARY 2011


JODIE CONNOR


Wow you’re a hard lady to get hold of! Yeah at the moment I’m really busy promoting the new single.


So you have your new single out ‘Now Or Never ft Wiley’ and you’re performing on platforms all across the UK. You’ve also got an up and coming album. With all this happening in you career, is it probably a safe thing to say you’re blessed mentally and spiritually right now? Definitely, if this had happened a few years ago, I’d probably wouldn’t have been ready, but I’m in a good place, my music’s in a good place, I’m working with a great team of people. So everything’s looking really good at the moment.


One of the singles that really caught my attention is ‘ Lover Like You’ and there’s a remix with Benz. How did you create that? Darwood did the beat, we came up with a hook idea and then we left it for ages, and then we asked Benz to come along and he put a hook on it. It was just on a pile with other tracks, we knew it kept sticking out but it didn’t have a verse and sometimes it just doesn’t come. We flew out to L.A. last summer with Roc Nations songwriters and Makeba Riddick who’s wrote a lot of Rihanna’s stuff. We sat down and wrote the verses together.


You used to work for youth offending services. Has that experience made sensitive


to social


you more issues?


Would you consider using your fame now to help people in those situations? Definitely I loved that job, I only left that job the week before ‘Good Times’ went to Number One, and I was juggling the two for a while. I think what I’m doing now is inspiring to kids on the streets to pursue their dreams really. If you show you can spend a number of years trying and never giving up, then it is possible. You never know what’s around the corner.


When you hooked up with Wiley, things really started to take off for you. How did that hook up take place? Wiley was in Manchester at the time and a friend of mine who’s very big on the Drum & Bass scene called MC Trigga persuaded him to come


Mr Wondah


Jodie Connor has been a busy woman crafting hits with the Godfather of Grime himself Wiley and both Tinie Tempah and Chipmunk are fans. We caught up with her to talk working with Roc Nation and her rise to fame.


up to the studio where I was working. It took him weeks and weeks to get him there. When he finally came he was like ‘ Whoa I like what your doing’ we need to do some more work. So I used to just do some features for him. I did the remix of ‘She’s Glowing’ and that’s how it started. Then I came to London to work with him. We sent ‘Good Times’ to him and he was blown away. He took it straight over to Relentless at Virgin and I got a deal.


You featured on Tinchy Strider’s track ‘In My System’ and then ‘Good Times’ on Roll Deeps track. Things went to another level there, and you’ve toured with Skepta on the MOBO tour. What has been one of your favourite memories so far? In the last 8/9 months, I’ve done so


many different performances that have completely


blown me away.


I think its’ got to be O2 Wireless with Roll Deep, I couldn’t even see where the crowd ended.


I could just


see a sea of heads, and I’ve always wanted to do something like that and obviously Jay Z was headlining that day. The atmosphere was just brilliant.


Your album is due for release later on this year and you’ve been working with some real heavy weight producers do they just add to your creative ideas? I think I’ve been lucky that I’ve used the same producer Darwood, so he flew over to LA with me, and he’s produced all the music. We sat down with each writer and wrote what we felt was wrote, but Darwood’s kept it all together.


Now your with Roc Nation you could get anyone on the album to collaborate with. So what can we expect? Well it’s not 100 per cent finished yet but obviously I’ve got the first track with Wiley, another track with Tinchy and were in discussions at the moment about getting a few more people on there. It’s going to be a big album!


Debut single ‘Now Or Never ft Wiley’ is out now


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