BY LYNN SAXBERG, THE OTTAWA CITIZEN
OTTAWA — Leave it to Kellylee Evans to give Eminem that swing. On her fifth album, the Juno-winning jazz vocalist, who makes her home west of Ottawa, not only offers an eloquent interpretation of Lose Yourself, the anguished hit by the bad-boy rapper, but also mashes two other Eminem tracks into one tight, punchy tune, My Name Is, that swaggers with baritone sax and sultry vocals.
I Remember When is the follow-up to Evans’ Juno-winning tribute to legendary jazz singer Nina Simone. This time, the 38-year-old mom draws from a far more contemporary well of influences; in addition to Eminem, the music is inspired by artists like Alicia Keys, A Tribe Called Quest and Kanye West.
“The goal was to go back and listen to the music that inspired us, from the music we listened to growing up to right now,” explained Evans during a visit to her home in the countryside, where she and her husband, Raul Li, homeschool their three children.
“The first song I picked was Eminem’s Lose Yourself,” she says. “That’s what was so interesting about the project: I had to listen and think, ‘What can I connect to?’ Lose Yourself is so incredibly universal, the idea of giving yourself to your dream and just going for gold, and performing like it’s your last time.”
Photograph by: Jean Levac , Ottawa Citizen
That’s always been Evans’ approach to music, although the concept for an urban/jazz album originated with Sébastien Vidal, a programming director for a club and radio station in France, who was struck by Evans’ beatbox-derived improv singing. Unbeknownst to Evans, he suggested to his contacts at Universal Music that she should record an album of hiphop-soul-infused tracks. They loved the idea and offered a deal.
Evans was loading her gear into a venue in Montreal when she got the call. After working independently for years, she was thrilled at the opportunity
“That was huge,” says the Scarborough native. “I wasn’t expecting it. I’m really happy because there’s a whole other team of people with a different set of skills that I’ve never had. Things happen faster. We’re even talking about the idea of doing a video. I’ve never done a video before.”
The disc came out in Canada this week, but was released in France in February and is already well on its way to scoring a hat trick of radio hits. One French radio station plays Lose Yourself, another plays Ordinary People and another can’t get enough of And So We Dance, a song that Evans first discovered in her quest to her learn French.
Read more: http://www.ottawacitizen.com/entertainment/movie-guide/Ottawa+jazz+singer+Kellylee+Evans+covers/8269721/story.html
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