Jones defends her Britney-sampling song 'Taste': 'Shall I be allowed to go through all of my influences or only the traditional R&B ones?'
she knew she was taking a risk — and some pop fans did take offense. But for the golden-voiced R&B/pop star, those kinds of choices were the whole point of her“I figured it was gonna ruffle feathers, because of course it’s something so sacred,” Jones says in the latest episode of ourpodcast.
“But I also want to remind people that I have all of these different influences, because that was my life. So pick the side of me you like, but don’t put me in a cage… Britney’s an icon — but tospecifically, the same way that Destiny’s Child is specific to me.” As Jones notes, she shares a Disney Channel background with Spears: “I was around that world andI was studyingof the girls. So I’m like, ‘Shall I be allowed to go through all of my influences or only the traditional R&B ones?’ Like, is there a rule here that I don’t know?”) with music, escaping the traps of child stardom, learning from her mom’s musical tastes, and much more. To hear the whole interview, go“My biggest fear was: Will my core people be mad at me?” she says. “Like, ‘Hey, you’re the ‘ICU’ girl. No, we’re done with you.’ I just didn’t wanna be discarded. I’m like, ‘Am I free to try things here?'”, Mariah Carey, Whitney Houston,” she says. “I mean, she would pick the most challenging songs for me, and I’d be like, ‘Seriously, why? This is the hardest song I’ve ever heard.’ And she’s like, ‘Well, if you can sing this, you can sing anything.’ She’s printing out the lyrics and she’s staring at me like, ‘Go ahead.’ And she’s pausing the music when it’s not real, when she doesn’t feel it connecting. She was literally my army sergeant.” Her Disney Channel experience taught her professionalism but left her confused about her artistic identity. “I would do whatever assignment was in front of me and I would do it well, but that doesn’t mean you have an identity,” she says “And as an artist, you need people to connect with you. You need to be real.”“I was fighting for my life because music was my life and it wasn’t working,” Jones says. “It’s very hard and it’s very scary, but you know what? I don’t know any journey that didn’t have the extreme low point of almost giving up. I want somebody to be able to look up an interview of mine, be on their journey of searching for their dream and feel better about the timing of it all.”“I was there to make a bop,” she recalls. “I wanted to make an uptempo, something cute, something sexy, something for the girls. And then I heard this track that was so emotional, and I was like, ‘Ooh, skip.'” Jones says. “I kept playing other tracks, but I just could not stop thinking about that one track that was so different from everything I had asked to play. I went back to it, and I really just freestyled honestly. And we wrote that song in like 20 minutes. I’m not even gonna lie.”“We were writing that one and it was just so fun,” Jones says. “And it was funny because we’re all in there talking about sex. It was just hilarious. It’s like, what’s going on? This is our job and this is what we do? There need to be a couple late-night songs.”Trump’s ICE Used a Woman’s Kids and Grandchild as ‘Bait’ to Arrest HerBeyoncé Replaces Sphere Reference on ‘Cowboy Carter’ Tour After Cease-and-Desist “I would want to kind of have this blueprint formulated that people can look at and be like, ‘Oh, that was the Coco Jones way,'” she says. “And maybe the next young Black girl could be like, ‘OK, she did it like that. I can do it like that.’ The way I study… I wanna be so transparent and so vocal that somebody can watch me and if they don’t know me personally, then maybe I can mentor them in a way.”. Check out eight years’ worth of episodes in the archive, including in-depth interviews with Mariah Carey, Bruce Springsteen, SZA, Questlove, Halsey, Neil Young, Snoop Dogg, Brandi Carlile, Phoebe Bridgers, Rick Ross, Alicia Keys, the National, Ice Cube, Taylor Hawkins, Willow, Keith Richards, Robert Plant, Dua Lipa, Killer Mike, Julian Casablancas, Sheryl Crow, Johnny Marr, Scott Weiland, Kirk Hammett, Liam Gallagher, Alice Cooper, Fleetwood Mac, Elvis Costello, John Legend, Donald Fagen, Charlie Puth, Phil Collins, Justin Townes Earle, Stephen Malkmus, Sebastian Bach, Tom Petty, Eddie Van Halen, Kelly Clarkson, Pete Townshend, Bob Seger, the Zombies, and Gary Clark Jr. And look for dozens of episodes featuring genre-spanning discussions, debates, and explainers withLiev Schreiber Opens Up for First Time About Trans Daughter Kai: 'It's Important That She Goes, "I Am Trans, Look at Me"’ Tom Cruise Shuts Down Tariffs Talk at 'Mission: Impossible' Press Event: "We'd Rather Answer Questions About the Movie" Sylvie Pialat, Producer of Cannes’ Opening Film ‘Leave One Day,’ Sets Projects With Directors Emmanuelle Bercot, Atiq Rahimi and Gustav Kervern
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