Jean Baylor

1994 was the year figure skater Nancy Kerrigan was attacked, 95-million people tuned in to watch OJ Simpson’s no-speed chase in the infamous white Bronco, and Clinton was accused of sexual harassment. While the world was spinning out of control, DJ’s were spinning a new track that made us move our hips and shake our groove thang. Dance floors crowded when Zhané’s “Hey Mr. DJ” vibrated through the speakers, and even now, the track still gets music lovers in a frenzy.

We find joy in reminiscing to those old school tracks that just made us feel good— before most music was formula-driven and offered a rhythmic escape. While many of us are still dancing in the mirror to “Hey Mr. DJ” and singing along with the softer “Sending My Love,” we can now enjoy the smooth and fresh sound of Jean Baylor, one-half of the duo that we’ve grown up with and have grown to love.

Baylor recently sat down with Scheme to discuss her life in music and what we can expect from her first solo album, Testimony: My Life Story. We started off by talking about what the talented songstress has been up to since the release of Zhané’s second album, Saturday Night.

Jean Baylor: I’ve done a lot since then. That was back in 1997 and basically at the top of 2000 was when I decided to break away from the group. After I did that I had a lot of down time. I worked on a little bit of music but I had a lot of down time to live life normally… away from the industry and that was great because I got time to just be away from the entertainment thing and life live as a regular person.

I also got married and during that time as well, I got reconnected to the Lord and so there were just life-changing experiences that I had on that down time, which was great because I got to put a lot of that into my new album. I had a lot to talk about, which is why there are 16 songs on the album.

Scheme: So how would you say you’ve changed stylistically and musically since you broke away from Zhané?
Jean Baylor: I’d say that more than anything, I’ve grown into myself more. I’ve managed to come full-circle musically. On this album you’ll hear more of my personal style singing and writing, and the blessing is that [I] have that autonomy. Especially the way we did it, my husband and I executive produced and co-produced the entire project. There were two other guys that produced it as well. This way, I had a lot more space to write whatever came to me. There was no label saying “Okay, it’s gotta sound like this.” So that was the huge blessing in recording this album.

In terms of change, I think I’ve just grown more so as a singer… as a songwriter definitely. I’ve been experimenting in writing in different styles on projects outside of the album and creatively I’ve started thinking about the next album, but I don’t even want to go there yet [laughing].

Scheme: This is your first solo album. How has the response been so far?
Jean Baylor: You know, we’ve got great response. That’s also been a blessing. People have responded online, on Myspace, YouTube, on websites. We’ve been getting a lot of press online. People have been responding really positively on the album. A lot of people like it, they like the songs, the subject matter, and when I get to perform live lately I’ve been doing an acoustic set with a guitar. With that it’s so open that you really get to hear me and I’m really able to express myself. The album is one thing but a live situation is totally different, so people are really liking the live performances. We’re just really grateful and excited about project and the response.

Scheme: What kind of sound can we expect from Testimony?
Jean Baylor: Definitely a very mainstream R&B with some pop elements, but also some soul elements as well. Very slight Hip-Hop elements here and there with the production. But all in all, I just call it a mainstream album. A lot of people like it. You have African Americans who have their favorite songs. You have Caucasians who have their favorite songs. You have the younger people and the older people who all have their different favorite songs. The good thing is that when I talk to people, everyone has different favorite songs, which I always think is a good sign of a good album… that you don’t just have two good songs and then the rest of the album is just mediocre. So I can definitely say there are some feel-good songs there that people will enjoy waking up to and listening to throughout their day, and some messages that hopefully will inspire people as well.

Scheme: What are your favorite songs on the album?
Jean Baylor: I have a couple favorite songs. One is “Come Go with Me.” That’s the one with the string arrangement. There’s a live orchestra playing on the album and that was a lot of fun creating… being in the studio with a live orchestra. Benjamin Wright, a well-known string arranger, actually arranged the strings for us. He’s done stuff for Raphael Saadiq and all kinds of people. My second favorite song is “Love Poem,” and that’s a slow song later on in the album. It’s a love poem to my husband. I like doing that one live.

Scheme: I noticed that you have Spinderella on the Outro and the Intro. How did that come about?
Jean Baylor: Yes! Spin, she really came through for me on this project. My husband and I were in LA mixing the album, and that part of the song, I had actually done on the album and it was horrible. We were like “Man, we need a real DJ to do this. It just sounds crazy. It’s whack.” We didn’t even know that Spin was out there. We started flipping through radio channels and we heard her show Spin City and I was like “You know what? We gotta roll through this radio station and ask if she’ll do it,” and she did. She was very, very helpful and very supportive. We kind of looked at it in a sense of you know, Old School artists that fortunately get a lot of respect and that people still like hearing. Actually when I was with Zhané, we toured with them in ’95. We opened up for them in Australia. That’s how I came to know her so she helped me out.

Scheme: You’ve also written for other people in the industry. Who have you written for?
Jean Baylor: I’ve written for Mary J. Blidge. I did a song on one of her albums a couple years back with a friend, a producer named Ike Lee. We also did a couple of songs on Allure’s project a few years back. I had two songs that were in HBO’s Disappearing Acts. That was really cool. And I did a song with a Gospel artist named Ametria.

I stepped away from writing for other artists to focus on my career. So now I’m getting back into it. Not so much for other artists, but for different projects from the marketing standpoint. I actually just recorded a song for a Jazz group, a very well-known Jazz group called The Yellow Jackets. My husband is actually the drummer for The Yellow Jackets. So I wrote a song that I sang for their album that will be coming out later this year.

Scheme: How is the creative process different from when you’re writing for yourself compared to writing for other artists?
Jean Baylor: For me it really depends. There’s no one set way. Some songs that I just happen to write are better suited for other artists than for myself. Like with the song that we did on Mary’s album, it was called “Not Looking,” and it was a duet that she did with K-Ci. This was a song that he [Ike] gave me the track and I was driving around listening to the track and I just started singing. That’s how I came up with the idea for the song and the concept. So I finished the song and then we said “Wow, who would this be good for?” And everybody who heard it said that’s Mary all day. So in that situation, I wrote the song without anybody in mind, but it wasn’t a good song for me as an artist to sing because it didn’t really suite me stylistically and my image. It was perfect for her. There are songs that I’ve written with certain artists in mind and other artists have done it.

Scheme: I know Renee [the other half of Zhané] is doing her thing. Will there be any future collaboration between you two?
Jean Baylor: You never know if we’ll do a collaboration or sing on each other’s albums in the future. I never close the door to things like that, but right now my number one concern is establishing myself as a solo artist and nurturing that career.

Scheme: Are you currently touring or planning a tour any time soon?
Jean Baylor: I don’t have any definite dates yet but we’re definitely working to set up some things for 2008 and looking to go to a lot of the major markets and do some touring. I might do an acoustic tour. For anyone who wants to keep up with my tour schedule, they can find out at www.myspace.com/jeanbaylor or they can go to www.jeanbaylor.com. I just want to throw that out there. They can listen to the music, check out live footage, and actually buy the download on www.dajams.com.

Scheme: Excellent. We’ll definitely plug those links. Thank you for the interview, Jean.
Jean Baylor: Thank you for featuring me in Scheme Mag.