RS: One of the songs of yours that you redid was Looking For A New Love, what was it like re-singing the vocals fifteen years later?
Jody Watley: I think I still sound the same, but a little more mature. One of the best things about being an artist, for the length of time that I have been and being how I try to be, is that I can make my voice, as a song stylist, sound like I'm fifteen years old and I can also go sultry and work the lower register of my voice. But I
thought it was kind of cool that I could sing Looking For A New Love and a lot of people think it was the same vocal, but it wasn't. And it was fun.
RS: I saw the video for Borderline on Myspace. When was that filmed, what was the story behind it?
Jody Watley: It was filmed a few weeks ago and I wanted to do something that was really pure that wasn't about fashion, it wasn't about 'look at my body,' it wasn't about anything other than 'I want you to pay attention to the lyric, the emotion.' I mean everything is so quick, quick, quick, quick cut, packaged, contrived, and the whole
bit, and I just wanted to do something more pared down and I was thinking about the video for Sinéad O'Connor's Nothing Compares 2 U, and even D'Angelo's Untitled (How Does It Feel), where it was just him, was very riveting. So I wanted to do something like that that really did justice to what I did with the song itself.
RS: What you just commented on about how love is contrived and even mass-marketed, that really wouldn't fit you because since your beginning, you've always been in control of yourself and controlled how your image is used…
Jody Watley: Right.
RS: I just want to see how that translates right now to the
21st Century and how you control your image, getting it out to your
fans. How do you think the internet has helped your career in 2006?
Jody Watley: I love it, I love it, it's perfect for an independent like myself and for all independent artists because record companies are under just a few large corporate umbrellas. A while ago it used to be the Geffens and Motowns and they were their own entity and now you have hundreds of labels under one umbrella, you have hundreds of
stations under one umbrella. And the downside of it is that it has everybody being shepherded to one direction, and with the internet, you can be as hands-on with your fans as you want to be. I'm very involved in my website, I try to answer eMail, I update it, you know, most artist websites are kind of corporate, you know, not them posting their information or whatever. And then with networking, sites like Myspace, I think it's fantastic, I love it. You know, it's like when I did the video I didn't have to wait to send it out to get approval from MTV or VH1, who show very few videos anyway, so it's like I can get this up right now, I don't have to wait, so it's good.
