 Jean Baylor JUSTIFIED
The r&b queen reemerges in the indie scene
By Tiffany White
Photos courtesy of jeanbaylor.com and jatilindsay.com
In 1993, Jean Baylor and her college pal, Renee Neufville, were riding high at the top of the music charts with their hit single "Hey Mr. D.J." The duo, known as Zhané, rocked short cuts—Baylor sporting a caesar, Neufville fingerwaves; graced the cover of Essence and hair magazines for their daring look and mellifious sound. But after two albums, and two more hits—"Sending My Love" and "Groove Thang"—Baylor called it quits in 2000. She wanted to stretch her creative wings and explore life as a solo artist, she says. But instead, Baylor quietly tip-toed away from the music scene completely.
During her eight years of simply "enjoying life," she married, reestablished her relationship with God and got reacquainted with the more personal aspects of music making. Her new CD Testimony: My Life Story is a soulful testiment of her journey, minus the sexy, pop-soul tracks Zhané was known for. Instead Norris-Baylor
shows a more robust and diverse sound mixed with a hint of gospel. Tracks
like "Sweet," is accompanied by a church organ; "Come Go With Me," delivers a tinge of '90s r&b nostalgia; while "Bye Bye" and "Hear My Voice" are pure pop. The standout track "Morning Time" is an emotionally powerful, spiritual song that flows with an unconventional beat of sampled voices (and the live version included on the CD is even better). Baylor's voice is silky as she sings messages of positive
encouragement.
Baylor sat down with AMBERmag.com to discuss the major changes in her life, how the music industry has changed and the beauty of developing her promoting her own label, Be A Light Records.
AMBERmag.com: Has your approach to music changed since leaving Zhané?
Jean Baylor: Yes it has, it has in the sense that…well, here's the thing. It's not like I was in the studio completely by myself the first time because my husband [Marcus Baylor] is actually in the industry as well. He's a drummer with the jazz group The Yellowjackets and they're very successful. They've been around for 20-something years, and he's been with them for 7 or 8 years now. But we actually co-produced the CD together. We executive produced it and we co-produced it in the studio, and I would say 85 percent of the time it was just me and him in there. […] I wrote all the lyrics and all the vocal arrangements; I did that. I guess the biggest difference is that you're really getting Jean. You're not just getting a small piece of me; you're getting me on the song. So I would say that's the biggest difference creatively as far as what people are going to hear.
AMBERmag.com: How has the modern music industry changed how you work today?
JB: Oh…my...gosh. I could go on for five hours! [laughs] But I won't. The industry has changed drastically since '97. It has changed in a lot of ways and a lot of not so good ways as well. And what it does is it forces you to think out of the box. With my solo album and career, one interesting twist is that my husband and I started our own label. It's called Be A Light and it's a totally different experience. I mean, when I was with Motown—Motown is a major label, so they do everything. They pay for everything for number one, and number two, they take care of the arrangements for whatever. Whether it's the promotion or tour, whether it's someone you want to work with in the studio…you know, they arranged the session. They arranged everything—transportation, traveling. Anything that needed to be done, they did it. Where as now that we're our own label, much of the responsibility is on us to make things happen and to create opportunities and, of course, financially fit the bill for everything.
But I'm so excited about this entrepreneur thing because the flip side is you have creative control over whatever it is you do. And not only creative control but you have the business control to make the business decision on what you want to do. However you want to distribute [your product], you have to create enough value for people to want to distribute your product. It's not easy, but it's very rewarding and it's such a huge blessing owning something you created and owning it creatively and financially as well. So to answer your question, it's changed because you have to think outside the box now. You have to think of more innovative ways to do things and creative ways to do things because if you don't have 1.5 million dollars to shell out on a project, you got to figure, "OK, how am I still gonna get this done even though that much money may not be there to do it?" And there's a way. When there's a will, there's a way.
Also, technology has changed the industry so much because, if you so desire, you have access to your listeners and your fans and you can sell directly to your fans. You can create a grassroots database and fan base of the people that listen to your music. It kind of puts you a bit more in control, but on the business aspect, you still have to have some type of budget [so that] you can market and promote according to how much records you have to sell. So it's a lot, and it's changed so much. It forces you to think differently. My marketing rep is constantly sending us things, different types of campaigns that other artists have done, and it's so interesting because it's basically up to your level of creativity of what you can do to promote your CD online.
 AMBERmag.com: When you say "think outside the box," do you mean marketing or creatively?
JB: Marketing. [laughs] I'll tell you this, if you own your own product and you're not going through a major [label], you do have the creativity to think out of the box musically as well because you don't have some guy saying, "Hey, I need a Timbaland joint," or "I need something that sounds like Chris Brown." Now they [major labels] actually have fantastic artists and producers and they're very talented and successful, but each person has to be their own artist. You don't want to model yourself so much after someone that's out there, and what happens when they do that is now you have an industry where everyone sounds the same. Whereas, a lot of independent music is really into finding their sound and developing their sound and doing them instead of saying, "Let me get this hot producer because they had a hit with this other artist and hopefully they'll have a hit with me.” You can think in the creative sense, too, but I'm speaking more about marketing and promotion, because you can have a great product but if nobody hears it, nobody's gonna buy it. If they don't know it exists, you're not gonna sell any! [laughs] Because marketing is so expensive. I mean a radio promotion campaign is expensive. Hiring a publicist to get you out there, that's thousands of dollars a month. You know, it's very expensive and pricey. So you have to figure out different ways to get the job done that don't necessarily cost so much money.
AMBERmag.com: What do you think about artists like Radiohead and other bands that have started releasing their albums for free online? Do you think that's an alternative method to competing in the modern music industry?
JB: That's a fantastic question. The thing is, band's like Radiohead, and I think there's another band that did that, they have already experienced success on a mainstream level, right? So they're a pretty popular band that sold a lot of records. I remember Madonna did that first a few years ago. She's a huge artist, so they can afford to just release their project for free and give it away because they have big touring budgets. They have large audiences, so they can still make a living. […] But for me personally, I can't spend money to create a project and just give it away for free. And no other business is that ever done except now [in the music industry]. The major label system is failing so bad that everyone is trying to figure out new ways to do things based on technology.
And one of the ways technology has negatively affected the industry is like with the iPod. It's a great thing; I mean I have one. I use it when I go to the gym. But with this whole new system of iPods and iTunes, it has made the industry so consumer based, where the person that usually had to choose between buying a couple of singles or an album, now they have the option to just pick your album apart and say, "Oh, I'll just get that song," or "I'll just get these two songs," or "I like these three songs." And they never go get the CD, and then they choose a song from another [artist's] CD and so forth. It's great for iTunes, it's great for the consumer, but it's not great for the artist and it's not great for the label because now they're not making enough money to sustain themselves. Nobody is ever gonna buy a product they can get for free. That's just the business fundamental. I go to stores for the same product and compare all day long and I always choose the one with the cheapest price because it helps me save money.
[…] However, there is no way that I'm just gonna give my product away for free. You have to have value; you have to create value. If you're going to be in business and if you're going to be a profitable business, you have to have a product that has value for the consumer that's supposed to buy it. So by giving away everything for free, how am I supposed to pay my mortgage? [laughs] I mean, am I gonna have to move in with somebody at the end of the day? So imagine Sony records releasing all their albums, just giving them away for free. That does them no good. It may create a great fan base for the artist and the artist can now tour, but that does nothing for Sony records. So that's an arguable point because there's definitely an upside to it, there's definitely some benefits to it, you just can't convince me that it's gonna benefit me enough to do it. So it's an interesting point you can argue all day.
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