I think The Dream is super talented, I’m a huge fan of his wife too. rude boy, come on now, how “urban” is that?Ĭiara’s “ride” has broken top ten on URBAN radio this week, she’ll bust her way into the top of the charts once the tired songs from usher/alicia keys wear off. Beyonce has become a pop artist, just like Rhianna. If Beyonce only stuck to making songs sounding like “ring the alarm” or “diva” she would NOT be where she is today. Ciara is an URBAN artist unlike sellouts like Beyonce and Rhianna who have to turn to pop to make themselves bigger. It is sad that artists as talented as Ciara goes so unnoticed, outside the urban world. But since her passing, Ciara has come in to fill her void. I enjoyed her last album, but the sales were dismal.īut, if you can enjoy listening to the garbage that gets played these days a la “Keisha”, than I guess the innovative tunes that are coming out the hot s*** fine ass of Ciara is not worth your time.Īaliyah was the original “street but sweet” style infused sexiness. “I wouldn’t mind Janet’s success, though,” she said.I think what the “Dream” had said was true, being a Ciara fan myself. She paused, then flashed a picture-perfect grin. “Because of all the comparisons, it’s even more of a motivation for me to become my own person,” she said. She is also often likened to Janet Jackson and the R & B singer Aaliyah, who died in a plane crash in 2001, a comparison she appreciates but also seems reluctant to embrace. She has been the called “the first lady of crunk &B,” a title she is all too willing to relinquish. Reid, then based in Atlanta, eventually signed her to his LaFace Records, which eventually became part of Zomba. She formed an R&B girl group, Hear Say, which disbanded after six months. “I knew I had something, but I was always a little shy about it.” “I always sang in the mirror and in the shower,” she said. She was popular in high school cheerleader, track star, perennial prom date but she had her sights set on the music industry. Can’t go back.”Īll the moving about taught her to adapt quickly to new places and new surroundings.
“I would cry, but eventually I would have to get over it because I’d be in the next state. “I would build these friendships, and it would be challenging to end them,” she said. She knew exactly what she wanted for this album and was very in control of her music.” “Sometimes people will come to you, and they don’t know what they want to do they just want a hit record. “She was such a little kid on the first album, but now she’s a lot more outspoken,” he said. Lil Jon, who produced two tracks on “Goodies,” said he had definitely noticed a change in her. She no longer appears as concerned with keeping her goodies in a jar. The album’s first single, “Promise,” a breathy, Prince-inspired ballad, should come with a condom and a cigarette. While “Goodies” was the stuff of slumber parties, “Evolution” is made for more adult sleepovers. Her hair, once strawberry blond, was dyed a shimmering black, and she has dropped nearly 15 pounds (by limiting carbohydrates, working out and drinking water, she said). That evening she wore curve-hugging jeans, bejeweled Prada platform pumps and a cropped leather bomber jacket. Gone were the baggy jeans, sneakers and midriff-baring T-shirts she used to favor. Both her physical and sartorial evolution were readily apparent. Alex di Suvero for The New York Timesįor a person functioning on less than five hours of sleep, Ciara was wide-eyed and chatty, discussing everything from her favorite fashion designers to adages that she lives by (“teamwork makes a dream work”). Those betting that she was little more than a one-hit wonder were proved wrong with her chart-topping follow-ups “One, Two Step” (featuring Missy Elliott) and “Oh” (featuring Ludacris).Ĭiara at her hotel suite after she appeared on Late Show With David Letterman. Credit. The kiss-off lyrics laid over an addictive beat proved a winning combination the song raced to the top of the Billboard chart and quickly established Ciara (pronounced Sierra) as a singer to watch. “If you’re looking for the goodies/Keep on looking, ’cause they stay in the jar,” she sang. Her 2004 debut, “Goodies,” a fun-loving R&B album made for clubs and skate rinks alike, sold nearly five million copies worldwide, largely on the strength of the title track, a girl-power anthem promoting, of all things in these sexually charged times, abstinence. “I guess I’ve already done the first two.” “The first goal was to get a deal with a major recording company the second was to sell three to five million records and the third one was to have longevity,” the R & B singer, now known as Ciara, recalled last week. While her classmates were busy fretting about boys, zits and trips to the mall, the 14-year-old Ciara Princess Harris was preoccupied with something more intangible, mapping out her music career.