Her name certainly sounds familiar to you and that’s normal! What if I say « Leave! Get out! »? Yes! You guessed right, JoJo is the young woman who sings the song Leave (Get Out) released in 2004. At that time, she were 13 years old. After that, we didn’t hear a lot about her even though she were active the entire time.

Her story is very inspiring and proves that determination and patience can help you go through hard times and achieve your goals.

Who’s JoJo?

Joanna « JoJo » Noëlle Blagden Levesque is a singer, songwriter and actress from America. She has English, French, Irish, Native Amercian, Polish and Scottish ancestry.

She is the only child of a modest family. Her parents divorced when she was 4 and was raised by her mother.

Both her parents used to sing: her father sang as a hobby and her mother was trained in musical theater and sang in a Catholic church choir. No surprise then to know that JoJo started to sing at an early age — she was two years old!

While growing up, she performed in many singing competitions and also acted in professional theaters. But her career took a turn after competing on America’s Most Talented Kids in 2003 where she got noticed by Vincent Herbert, a record producer.

Her work

Less than a year after, JoJo released her self-titled debut album and her debut single, Leave (Get Out) followed by Baby It’s You ft. Bow Wow and Not That Kinda Girl.

Her career looked promising: her first album met great success and at the age of 13, she became:
• the youngest solo artist to have a number-one single in the US;
• the youngest MTV Music Video Award nominee;
• the youngest artist to be nominated at the Billboard Music Awards;
• etc.

Two years later, she released her second album, The High Road and the lead single, Too Little Too Late that broke the record for the biggest jump on the Billboard Hot 100 chart, moving from number 66 to number three in one week! Then, two other songs were released: How To Touch A Girl and Anything but both had little success.

The troubles began…

In 2008, Jojo started to write songs for her third album that was supposed to be released around 2009. But it didn’t happen due to problems she had with her record label at the time, Da Family Entertainment. She filed a lawsuit against the label and asked to be released from her contract. Few months later, she signed another deal with Background Records for Interscope Records.

End of 2010, she released her first mixtape, Can’t Take That Away From Me. A year later, she released the song Disaster that received mixed reviews and got little success. Despite this, she released a music video for the song and performed the track on TV.  She also went on tour as a support act for the Joe Jonas and Jay Sean tour and on a small promotional tour to raise money for breast cancer research.

In early 2012, she toured for 5 dates with Big Time Rush and released a promotional single, Sexy To Me, only available on iTunes and Amazon. She tried to release another single, Demonstrate but failed for unknown reasons.

Following other issues with her record label in late 2012, resulting again in the delay of the release of an album, JoJo recorded new songs for another mixtape. Few months later, Agápē — which means « unconditional love » in Greek — was released for free through digital download and she also went on a small tour in the US.

Mid-2013, JoJo filed a lawsuit against her labels, Background Records and Da Family Entertainment, for irreparable damages to her professional career. Both parties came to an agreement outside court and in January 2014, JoJo was officially released from her battle with the labels.

She finally signed a deal with Atlantic Records and released three EPs, #LoveJo, #LoveJo2 and III. (pronounced « Tringle »). Then, JoJo went on a small promotional tour across the US to preview music from her upcoming album.

In 2016, she went on tour as a support act for Fifth Harmony and their 7/27 Tour. At the same time, JoJo released the lead single, Fuck Apologies ft. Wiz Khalifa, of her highly-anticipated third album called Mad Love. released in October 2016.

What do I think about JoJo and her work?

To be honest, like most people in Europe — except those who were following her closely, I lost track of her and her career after her second album.

And then, Mad Love. was released. That’s when I rediscovered this talented artist and beautiful person.

JoJo’s went through lots of highs and lows in both her career and personal life as with the unexpected death of her father with whom she just started to reconnect.

Hopefully, she didn’t give up on her dream. Giving up on music would be like giving up on herself: music is everything to her. We can see it, hear it and feel it. I invite you to listen to Music and watch the lovely video >here<.

She’s a strong and brave young woman but vulnerable too and she’s not afraid to show this side of her. JoJo has a lot to say, a lot of feelings to express and she does it through music. It makes her and her work very authentic and real. I appreciate that.

We can see that she has a strong connection with her fans. She is grateful and concerned to give them the best of her through her music and every live performances.

I haven’t had the chance yet to see her performing live — I missed her on her European tour. But thanks to internet and social media, I had a glimpse at her skills. And no doubt she’s an amazing performer. Her vocals are always on point. And one of the things I appreciate is that she has a great vocal technique but she also communicates emotions.

She came a long way and the adventure is not done yet. JoJo deserves success because of her talent but not just for that. She doesn’t give up, she learns the lessons, she knows her worth and moves forward. So, no matter what you’re going through at the moment, be strong and keep fighting!

Some of my favourite songs of JoJo

Mad Love. is a great album I highly recommend! Anyway, here is a playlist with some of the songs I like (to see the list of songs, click on the menu next to the song’s title) 🙂 Enjoy!

I hope JoJo’s story inspires you and that it will motivate you to keep going no matter what!

What do you think about JoJo’s story and music? Leave a comment to share your thoughts about it, I’d love to know what you think! 🙂