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Jones denies rumors of him being in Kappa Alpha Psi Fraternity.
Credit: AP Photo
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Another Showtime Exclusive:
by Adrienne Donnell
The Birmingham Times
Originally posted 5/18/2006
R&B Crooner, Donell Jones takes us on a “Journey of a Gemini”
Latest album in stores June 20th
Showtime Editor
He’s Back! After a two year absence of dealing with label changes, Donell Jones is back and is ready to tell us about his journey. His new album, “Journey of a Gemini,” a project that started three years, three labels and fifty songs ago, and introduces us to both sides of his intriguing personality.
In this second consecutive Showtime Exclusive, I had the chance to explore the many sides of Donell Jones, the lessons he has learned on his musical ‘journey’, how he balances being a father of four, and even clear up rumors of him being in a Greek Fraternity and where this rumor stemmed from.
AD- Let us in on what you’ve been doing since your last album in 2002.
DJ- Pretty much what I’ve been doing is recording trying to get this album out there. My label shut down which (was) Laface. Then I was shifted to Arista and the Arista shut down. Now I’m on Jive Records. So I mean it took a long time before those labels were able to find out where their artists were going to go, including myself. So that’s pretty much what I’ve been doing. And you know I’m a family man, I got four kids so......
AD- How do you learn to balance the family and the career?
DJ- It’s pretty easy for me. I work from home. I got the studio at my house and it’s pretty much easy for me to do what I do and see my children.
AD- Now your album is titled “Journey of a Gemini,” I’m assuming you’re a Gemini. Is it true what they say about Geminis? Do you think that you have a split personality?
DJ- I really do feel like I do have a couple of different personalities and when I was drinking I probably had about five or six different personalities. (laughs) That is definitely true when they say you don’t know what you might get from day to day while dealing with a Gemini.
AD- Tell me about your album “Journey of a Gemini” that’s supposed to be dropping on June 20th.
DJ- This is my best work to date. I can definitely say this is one of the albums you can put on and play from beginning to end. It’s not really geared towards any age group. It’s just really that feel good music that anyone can listen to. I’ve worked with some great producers on this project. Mike City, The Underdogs, myself, Sean Garrett. Just a whole host of great producers and that was something that’s a little bit different than any project that I’ve done before because mostly, I pretty much do most of it myself. But on this particular album I probably did about 50 percent of it.
AD- Now those are collaborations you did production-wise, will you have any featured artists on your album?
DJ- Well, I got a joint with Jermaine Dupri called “Better Start Talking and another joint with Bun B and it's called “If you want.”
AD- Your first album was in 1996 but before then you were doing some writing for people like Usher and 702. How did you get into the business?
DJ- I was probably about 16 or 17. In Chicago I had a group called Porshe and we sang all around Chicago and pretty much made a name for ourselves and then what happened was we kind of got to a point where nothing was really happening in Chicago, so we said “Let’s take a trip.” There was this big conference in Washington D.C. called the B.R.E. We went out to D.C. for this convention. We had a showcase there but nobody came to our showcase so we just went outside the hotels where everyone was staying and sang for anybody that walked out of the hotel. Anybody that would listen, we would sing for. Eddie F. happened to be one of those people and he was like ‘Yo man, I’m gonna sign ya’ll. Don’t ya’ll sing for nobody else.’ So that’s what he did. Two months later he sent us tickets for us to come out to New York.
AD- And what was his name again?
DJ- Eddie F. For those that don’t know who he is, that’s Heavy D’s D.J.
AD- Do you still stay in contact with some of your old group members?
DJ- We talk on occasion.
AD- Now I also noticed that you are a Kappa. Did you pledge in college and what college did you go to?
DJ- I don’t know where that came from. (laughs)
AD- It’s on your bio on Wikipedia.com
DJ- Somebody made a mistake (laughs)
AD- Really?
DJ- Naw that can’t be in my bio cause....Naw naw I’m not a Kappa.
AD- They need to correct that on Wikipedia. It states ‘Jones is a member of Kappa Alpha Psi Fraternity.’
DJ- You know what? I think that somebody kind of got it mixed up because on one of my album covers, the ‘You Know What’s Up’ cover, I was holding up a sign that looks like theirs. But naw, it just so happened that (the label execs) picked that picture.
AD- Well, I’m glad we cleared that up. So did you ever go to college?
DJ- No, I really just tried to pursue my (music) career. I really didn’t want to do anything but music. I just went with it.
AD- Who are some of your musical influences?
DJ- Stevie Wonder, Michael Jackson, Teddy Pendergrass, The Isley Brothers, Babyface, just to name a few.
AD- Tell me how you’ve changed from “My Heart” in 1996 to where you are now?
DJ- When I first got into the business everything was about drum machines, the new hip hop and R&B that was out, so most of my songs were sample records that really didn’t take a lot of thought to do. You just grab a record that somebody already liked and just sing on top of it. My music for me now is live instrumentation. I have live horns on some of my songs, a lot of live guitars on my songs and the production is a whole lot better. It’s a lot more feeling and meaning in the music so that's what makes this album different than in 1996.
AD- “Life Goes On” peaked at #2. Why do you think that album was accepted so well and how do you think it was different from your previous two albums?
DJ- I didn’t even know that. I’m gonna be honest with you. (laughs) I really feel that album never really got the the push that it was supposed to get. But I think it was a really good project but the label only put out one single and that was “You know that I love you.” For an album to be successful, you definitely have to have more than one single. I didn’t even know that it peaked at #2.
AD- Well, that information was on Wikipedia too. (laughs)
DJ- (Jokingly) We gonna have to research Wikipedia.
AD- Yeah we gonna have to check with them. But it also has on here that “You know what’s up” with Left eye on the US Hot 100 was #7 and in the UK it was #2. That sounds about right don’t you think?
DJ- Yeah, that’s definitely correct.
AD- Which one of your four albums is closest to your heart or really expresses who you are as an artist?
DJ- One good thing I can say about my previous label is that from the beginning of my career they never told me to go and do something I didn’t want to do. From the beginning I’ve always been respected as an artist and as a writer so I pretty much had the leeway to do whatever I wanted to do anyway. So all of my albums basically describe who I am as a person. But if I had to choose one, I would say the “Where I wanna be” album.....I really went in and focused on who I was as a person and what I was going through at the time and I tried to write that out the way that it was going. I feel like that’s what makes (Journey) even more special, because I’ve been through a lot more things in the past three years and I feel like I have a lot of things to say to people and they can get something out of it.
AD- What has been the hardest part about being in the music business?
DJ- The hardest part for me has been being on these labels and not getting the respect or type of push that it takes to break an artist like myself. All the respect goes to the other artists. If they gave me half the push as they would give a Justin Timberlake or as you would give an Usher, you’d see a whole lot different. For me I only feel like I get 35 percent of what they give those type of artists.
AD- And why do you think that is?
DJ- If I could tell you, I would be in a different situation. But I can’t tell you that. All I know is that if I was the owner of a record company, I wouldn’t sign an artist if I didn’t think he was gonna be something or I wouldn’t sign an artist if I wasn’t gonna push them.
AD- Is that something that you’re looking into Donell, maybe starting your own label?
DJ- As we speak, I’m looking into that right now. It’s something that I really want to do and at the end of the day I feel like I can accomplish my goal by doing it myself; because it’s like even if I sold a million records for the record company, or if I sold five million records they have just made 50 million dollars. They might come back to me and say ‘here’s five, go and make another album.’ To me it’s like if I sold 300,000 records on my own, which that’s like for me, that’s the bottom line, that’s three million dollars that I would never see from them. Now that’s only 300,000 copies compared to having sold a million for them.
AD- Well good luck with that label. Your music does good in the R&B market but have you considered the option of crossing over into the mainstream like many artists are doing?
DJ- When I make music I try to make the type of music that I like. Since I’ve been in the business this long, my true fans have stuck with me. I don’t try to crossover, I don’t try to do anything but make good music and if it crosses over, so be it. I’m definitely more happy if it crosses over but at the end of the day, I’m really trying to satisfy my fans.
AD- You’ve been to Birmingham haven’t you Donell?
DJ- Alabama?
AD- Yeah
DJ- Oh yeah
AD- Will you be here anytime soon, can we expect a tour?
DJ- You can definitely expect a tour. I can’t lie to you and say when, but I will come to Alabama.
AD- Well, we’ll be looking for you and thanks for speaking with me today.
DJ- I appreciate it.
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