02 Why Dontcha Call Me No More

07 The Lie

Few of us are fortunate enough to discover our passions and talents at an early age without having to go through a trial and error process to figure out where it is that we fit in. Some of us, for one reason or another, discover our gift only to find ourselves attempting to run from the inevitable fact that we are simply destined to make a difference in this thing we call “life.”
For singer/musician/songwriter Teresajenee music was to be her destiny.

Born in St. Louis, Missouri to a guitarist/preacher/vocalist (father) and an ex-70’s soul singer, turned church choir director (mother), it was only natural for TJ to have music pumping through her veins. Hauled to church at an early age one could find an energetic and enthusiastic little nine-year old girl running over to the piano during choir break to dissect note by note the chords that she heard the musicians playing in rehearsal. It was at this age, TJ started taking formal lessons for the clarinet. Though she found pleasure in learning the instrument she soon realized that her passion for the keys was far greater and thus started teaching herself how to play the piano. As time passed TJ’s musical gift started to take shape.

Attending Hazelwood East High School, Teresajenee was an active member of the school’s fine arts program; singing and dancing in theatrical productions, playing piano in the jazz band, and clarinet in the symphonic and marching bands. It was around this time that she discovered the sounds of rock, soul, and r&b, genres that went against the grain of her strict Pentecostal church roots. Teresajenee’s musical influence diversified, and artists such as Elton John, Frank Sinatra, Erykah Badu, Donny Hathaway, Stevie Wonder, Oasis, and The Clark Sisters became her muse. Even the songwriting began to reflect elements of all the music that she had absorbed, and in it, one could hear the influences of everything from Gospel to Jazz, Soul and Rock.

After high school, it was off to Tennessee State University, where she majored in Mass Communications. While at T.S.U., she’s played leading roles in university and independent theatre productions , operated as the musical director over the school’s gospel choir band and sang as a lead first soprano with the University Chorus. TJ eventually became an alumna of the Tennessee State and found herself back in St. Louis trying to figure out what it was she should do with her newly earned degree. Feeling her opportunity to break into the industry slowly fading away, TJ made plans to attend graduate school and pursue her master’s degree. From day one mama always taught her to finish what she had started. This philosophy coupled with the sacrifices that TJ had gone through to develop her artistry, solidified in her mind that she had to keep moving forward with her music career.

In just a few short years, Teresajenee has built a grassroots fan-base at Tennessee State (with students representing cities nationwide) and St. Louis, performed several live shows, and has grabbed the attention of major record label A&R’s. Unwilling to conform to compose music for the sole purpose of corporate radio play, Teresajenee chose to do things her way.

When asked what “her way” is she describes it as, “music that is soulful, introspective, and refreshing". Miss TJ feels that it is not her duty to let the artistry suffer for the sake of a get rich quick, one hit wonder kind of career. She instead chooses to create thought provoking, well written music that will reach the masses worldwide. She aspires to create songs that lyrically, vocally, and musically challenge the crassness of mainstream music today. Teresajenee has accepted the lifestyle of being a true artist and in hindsight understands that she did not choose music as her medium, but rather music has chosen her to make a difference in this world

http://www.myspace.com/teresajenee
twitter.com/jeneeklectic


02 Freedom!

Can’t tell everything, gotta keep a lil’ something to yourself is what they always say. You are required by the universe to speak the truth of your existence. Her music is the reflection of her soul and experience. She is complicated yet inherently simple. She stands alone yet so much a part of you. In her imperfect state, she presents her most perfect gift, in her own words, her song to you.

Wendy has always wanted to sing. “As long as I can remember, I always sang – in my room, in the car, school stages, smoky open-mics, wherever! I always had in my heart the desire to sing.” As a young woman, a friend told her that her voice had a special anointing, and throughout her life she had been buoyed and encouraged to share her God-given gift with others. While at Old Dominion University, she formed a group with a talented singer from Norfolk State University. Although the collaboration was short-lived, she knew that someday she would share her music with the world.

Over the last few years, she has dedicated herself to honing her songwriting and performance skills, appearing at Washington DC-area open-mics, talent showcases, and regional festivals such as AFRAM Fest, National Council of Negro Women’s National Black Family Reunion Celebration and the Festival of Pride. Her work with area up and coming producers: James McKinney (Anthem), Dave Hinds, Carl Rushing of Melodramatic and DeAndré Shaifer have captured the essence of her artistry as a vocalist and gifted lyricist. 

“One could say that I’m a child of 70’s soul. Lush orchestration, thought-provoking lyrics, lover of singers who simply saaaang! Simply put, I am a soul-child reborn, delivering straight vocals no chaser, tight arrangements, innovation and elevation of the ever-changing genre called R&B. My sound…it’s a honey-coated alto, breathy and full like a summer breeze. My style…it’s soulful, yet spiritual, old school, but something not yet seen. The sound coming forth can’t be defined, so I’ll vocalize and let you decide…

http://twittter.com/ladysoulsinger
http://www.myspace.com/wendymcintyre
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Wendy-McIntyre-is-the-Ladysoulsinger/26945844522#!/pages/Wendy-McIntyre-is-the-Ladysoulsinger/26945844522?v=info

01 Back In The Day

02 Wastin' Time

04 The Difference

For 17 years she’s made it look easy: marriage, motherhood, music career, and managing the enviable feat of becoming one of the most consistently sought-after producers and songwriters in independent soul. It doesn’t hurt that she’s also a knockout. For 17 years, Angela Johnson has been the real-life Superwoman of Independent Music. One of the first Indie Queens of Soul to reign, Johnson has released six albums of guilty pleasures that have caused thousands of souls to sing and feet to move around the globe. Building on the momentum established from her first two critically-acclaimed projects with Cooly’s hot-box, Johnson has become an international sensation in the UK and Japan and credibly positioned herself as a bankable brand with companies seeking fresh and innovative artists-partners. After years of sharing only the smiling siren behind the keys, with her latest Purpose Music release, It’s Personal, Johnson is now ready to reveal the truth behind the image and finally share the intimate secret to her fan’s #1 question: How does she do it?
Johnson will be the first to tell you that at least half of the reason she’s able to do it is her solid Utica, New York upbringing. A musical child prodigy, Johnson was playing piano by age four and violin by nine. The eldest of four, Johnson was supported throughout her formative years by a loving family in her most evident passion. Johnson’s Baptist church family added another layer of encouragement, giving her those crucial first opportunities to rock an audience as a choir director, organist and eventual star performer. At her spiritual and musical training ground, Johnson refined the ear arresting rhythms of her heart and the voice that echoed the notes endlessly playing in her head. Multi-hyphenated personal icons like Patrice Rushen and Angela Winbush set a path for Johnson in sound and illuminated the possible for a blue-collar girl who knew a multi-faceted musical destiny awaited her.
Born for music, Johnson enrolled in the State University of New York at Purchase (SUNY) to further study violin. At SUNY, she met her future Cooly’s hot-box bandmates and songwriting partner, Christian Urich. Together the eclectic soul and acid jazz band landed a deal with Polygram Records that ended almost before it begun. A trifecta of dance hits (“We Don’t Have To Be Alone,” “What A Surprise,”  and “Make Me Happy”) earned the band an international reputation for earnest, soulful grooves. In 2002, the group inked a new deal with Virgin Records, and released their critically acclaimed debut album, Take It. While honing her production and songwriting chops on the Cooly’s Hot Box debut album, Johnson decided it was time to express the woman she is alone and simultaneously recorded her solo debut, They Don’t Know (Purpose). Immediately distinguishing her sound from Cooly’s, Johnson’s solo debut, and its radio hit “Ordinary Things” loudly announced exactly what the industry should know: that Angela Johnson was here to stay. The industry listened. Songs from They Don’t Know and its intimate follow-up, Got To Let It Go (Purpose), were licensed by HBO’s The Wire, UPN’s Kevin Hill, FX’s The Shield, and the WB’s Roswell. As a featured spokesperson Angela was also appearing in Japanese car commercials for Nissan. In 2004 Angela briefly reunited with Cooly’s hot-box to record  their sophomore album, Don’t Be Afraid-Get On (Purpose).  In early 2005 the band was featured in a  national TV advertising campaign for SBCglobal.net (AT&T/Cingular). That same year Johnson departed the band who’d later become Tortured Soul. As a front woman for Cooly’s hot-box, Johnson had toured the world, now it was time to conquer it as an artistic force in her own right.
More than a pretty face, Johnson began penning hits for artists like Conya Doss (“Emotions”), Seek (“Journey Into Day”), Laurnea (“No Shame”), Monét (“Wanna Kiss You”), Reel People (“Can’t Stop”), and Japanese R&B superstar Double, for whom Johnson landed a 2001 top ten, gold selling hit, “Angel.” Her achievements as a producer and songwriter earned her the respect of artists’ artists like Maysa, Frank McComb, Eric Roberson, Rahsaan Patterson, Gordon Chambers, Marlon Saunders, and Claude McKnight, among others. All of whom graciously performed on Johnson’s last project, the single producer compilation, A Woman’s Touch, yielding the radio hit “Let Me Know (featuring Eric Roberson)” and three Soul Tracks Readers’ Choice Award nominations, including “Album of the Year.”
On stages from Kyoto to Briton, Johnson’s success, powerful performances, and Madison Avenue appeal helped to cultivate the alluring image of the dynamic Superwoman who was handling life with sass and aplomb, but there was always much more to Johnson’s woman next door persona than met the eye. In addition to her strong family upbringing, the secret weapon that has allowed Johnson to keep so many balls afloat over the last 17 years is her marriage to her manager and Purpose Music co-founder Russell Johnson. The dynamic duo has demonstrated the anti-thesis of every stereotype about Black love, Black family, and the legendary horror stories surrounding female artists with managing husbands. Angela’s comic sensibilities and creative chaos are complemented by Russell’s straight man stability and orderly business savvy. The Johnson’s yin and yang work because there are no leaders, only partners in business and in love. Together raising a daughter, who’s getting her own global education, the Johnson’s take co-parenting as seriously on tour as they do in their Newark, New Jersey home. With her newest project It’s Personal, it was important to Johnson to share her family and marriage experiences on songs like “Days,” “For You” and “Only One,” once and for all smashing the lone woman persona to share all of Angela Johnson with her fans.
After delivering nearly two decades of honest music, Angela Johnson has nothing left to prove. A newly liberated Johnson returns ready to party. Culling the funky sounds of that twilight period between the end of disco and the height of the funk era, Johnson’s production on It’s Personal rediscovers the rhythmic grooves, propulsive basslines, and memorable chords that once poured from live instruments instead of technology. Club bangers like the lead single “Better” and “Hurts Like Hell” fuses warm harmonies and infectious hooks with personal lyrics that tell Angie’s uncompromising truths. Throughout, Johnson gifts her listeners with that rare music her fans can both step to and be moved by, the kind once commonplace “On The Radio.”
With lyrical revelations like “Be Myself” and “Get Myself Together,” not since Got To Let It Go’s “Got To Let It Go,” Johnson’s personal testimony about surviving her mother’s homegoing, has Johnson bared so much of her soul in song. Even on the Eric Roberson’s penned “The Indie In Me,” the only lyric not written by Johnson, Roberson’s take on the joys and trials of life on the road as an artist resonate with Johnson’s story. As does the lifeblood of her marital love on the single, “All In Me,” with up and coming crooner, Darien, serving as a stand-in for Russell on a sultry duet that’s already steaming up the airwaves.
With It’s Personal, Angela tears down the final wall between her perfected image for the stage and the real-life woman who works hard and sometimes stumbles in her effort to keep it sexy for her husband, be a shining example for her daughter, maintain the esteem of her industry, and deliver the kind of music and performances that contributes something real in the lives of her fans. No more illusion, just Angie.

For tour and updates follow Angela Johnson on Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, Reverb Nation or on her website: http://www.angelajohnson.com/fr_home.cfm/. For bookings and inquiries: contact Russell Johnson @ The Purpose Music Group @ 973.688.8129 or purposemusicgroup@gmail.com.

http://www.angelajohnson.com/fr_angelajohnson.cfm
http://www.myspace.com/angelajohnson1

01 Only One

02 Hurts Like Hell

11 It's Personal

A poet and singer from the start, ArinMaya has a presence that suggests a juxtaposition of joy—her style is intimate and unique and her voice is like honey…in the raw. When asked what kind of music she sings, she answers, “I don’t know…jazz, soul, R&B, nu-soul, neo-soul, electrobeat…” and then she stops, looks up and says, “I sing music.” This candid, fearless, yet graceful truth-telling is what makes ArinMaya the artist we’ve all been waiting for. And her ability to move notes like mountains is only part of her charm.
Hailing from Chicago, ArinMaya earned her training wheels between church and her parents’ record collection, which included Paul Simon’s Graceland album, every album released by Sweet Honey in the Rock, and Des’ree’s I Ain’t Movin’, not to mention Pharoah Saunders and Stevie Wonder’s entire discographies and many others whose talents are as endless and diverse as her own growing music collection. An alumni of Howard University and Stanford University, Arin had the pleasure of performing with the Howard Gospel Choir and Everyday People A Cappella, respectively—both unbelievable and unforgettable experiences. She was also given the honor of serving as song leader for her beloved sorority, Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc., and still enjoys returning to the Delta plot on Howard’s campus to circle up and “call [her] sorors to the floor!”
At 27, ArinMaya is a cool stage presence with a rich and genuine sound that leaves her audiences open and ready for more. She calls out names of some of her influences, doting, “I wanna forget words so I can scat like Ella [Fitzgerald]…maintain my Nina [Simone] funk with that ‘this is who I am’ attitude…Bobby McFerrin—the freedom and color and space he creates in everything he does…and Amel Larrieux! Her songwriting is so amazing, it’s ridiculous.” Take these greats, blend them together, and add a killer smile, and there you will find ArinMaya.
Of her gift, Arin speaks with a humble yet confident consciousness, “I’m always glad when someone really likes it [when I sing], but I have SO far to go!” But she’s already spread her wings, from Cotton Club Berlin to Le Blue Note in Paris’ historic Montmatre district to Ashford & Simpson’s Sugar Bar in New York City. ArinMaya has also played Village Underground, Lenox Lounge, and Le Poisson Rouge. Residing in Brooklyn, NY, she’s made herself at home, performing residencies at the Senegalese mainstay, Joloff Restaurant in Clinton Hill, and Pâtes & Traditions, a cozy French cottage-style restaurant. Often accompanied by the acoustic genius of Vermont-born guitarist and crooner, Nick Cassarino, ArinMaya seems to know how to find her peace of mind. “Nick has a surprising appreciation for the standards, which I adore…we have fun, and there’s this synergy between us so people think we’re married. It works.”
If you haven’t had the pleasure of seeing her live in New York, do. You’ll be glad you did…and then you’ll find a way to catch her live! Her recently completed pre-EP, Duly Noted, contains all original songs and displays her unique style of poetry turned song, as well as her range of emotion, grace and skill. Listen for ArinMaya on spoken-word artist Shareef Ali’s CD, Walking on Atoms, released in July 2009, and on the European release of Blitz the Ambassador’s Stereotype, released in September 2009. Always smooth and always intentional, ArinMaya is creating a sound with her bold, textured voice, insightful lyrics and diverse range of influences, that will welcome, hold and heal you each and every time.
—Karyn Rose Bruyning for Pulchritudinous Music


http://www.facebook.com/pages/ArinMaya/115921445101
http://www.myspace.com/arinmayamusic
http://twitter.com/arinmaya
http://soundcloud.com/arinmaya
http://www.reverbnation.com/arinmayamusic
http://www.youtube.com/arinmaya

02 I Want To Be Beautiful

03 Once (feat. Nicholas Cassarino)

05 Do U Think

In the past 20 years, the entertainment industry has undergone many changes in what is seen, heard and how it gets to the masses. What is constantly on mainstream TV and Radio and even other mediums including the web show a tiny representation of talent, creativity, style and culture etc. Currently, we are transitioning from older methods of getting new and underexposed entertainment. It's now about using new methods and strategies to create the exposure we need and desire!

We at jinjii.com were convinced that there is a huge segment of the buying public that are artistically under served by the mainstream media and don’t know what and where to hear good music and see new TV.

jinjii.com is a online musical/visual alternative that provides ongoing independent video and audio programming. We will build and expose people to new genres and styles of entertainment by having the freedom to be more “cutting-edge” than existing TV and Radio. We will provide viewers the worldly perspective on culture, lifestyle, opinion, history, art, music, performance and entertainment while providing the world to the artist.

As jinjii.com continues, there is much more to come. So if you like what you see (or not), then say so. Feel free to participate and make suggestions. We are building as you enjoy our beginnings!

Enjoy The Renaissance and Stay Tuned!!

ePerry

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