When JoJo hits the stage at Rolling Meadows in Christchurch this New Year\u2019s Eve, she\u2019ll be soundtracking more than a countdown \u2014 she\u2019ll be celebrating a hard-won new era.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s so much optimism and energy surrounding the new year,\u201d she says. \u201cIt\u2019s not so much that I\u2019m a resolutions person, but I am a refocusing or intention type of person.\u201d She loves the idea that music can help people take on whatever comes next and let go of what\u2019s weighing them down; for an artist who\u2019s spent years reclaiming control of her voice and career, that symbolism isn\u2019t lost on her.<\/p>\n
JoJo\u2019s journey is one of the defining pop stories of the 2000s, signed at 12, a global hit at 13, and then trapped in one of the most notorious label disputes in modern music. For years, her story was defined by the red tape around what she couldn\u2019t release \u2014 while the world wondered why a star that bright had gone quiet.<\/p>\n
Now? She\u2019s firmly in the driver\u2019s seat.<\/p>\n
\u201c[\u2026] I\u2019m in control of when I release music, how I release music, and who I want to be a part of that process,\u201d she says. \u201cI\u2019m interested in living a life that makes me feel alive.\u201d<\/p>\n
The industry has spent a long time trying to categorise her. Marketed as pop while delivering the kind of deeply soulful vocals that drew comparisons to Brandy and Monica, she was often packaged according to what executives believed would cast the widest net \u2014 and because of assumptions about who gets to be labelled what.<\/p>\n
\u201cI just love music,\u201d she says. \u201cI care less about fitting in.\u201d<\/p>\n
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