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The first thing you notice about
Amerie is how unaffected she is by her new stardom. Okay, maybe
that’s not true. The first thing you notice is her exotic
good looks, courtesy of her Korean mother and African-American
father. And even while she charms you by being honest and humble
and real, you’re never able to forget just how beautiful
she is. Of course, if looks were all it takes to make it big in
music, Carmen Electra would still be a recording artist. It also
takes heart and intelligence, mixed with insight into the way
people really feel. Also known as soul.
At 22, Amerie has all that. And
although most R&B songs are about “love” (in one
form or another), many of them are superficial, using the word
as a catch phrase, an easy way to sell records. The difference
with Amerie is that her songs, all written by her producing partner
Rich Harrison with the exception of the “Outro”, actually
say something. They’re about the places we’ve all
been and the crazy weigh stations where the love train has abandoned
us. So when I sat down to talk with Amerie, naturally all I wanted
to talk about... was love.
“One
of my first memories of singing something,” she says, “was
in front of this boy I used to like when I was in second grade.
He was this Puerto Rican kid who lived down the street, and one
of my first memories of really singing was singing to him on the
swings. I used to love ‘Grease’, so I would go through
all the songs. His name was Danny, just like in the movie.”
She laughs, an infectious, genuine little laugh. “It was
so corny.”
That wasn’t love, though; that was just a crush. And Amerie
knows a lot about crushes. She was an army brat, moving from Texas
to Germany, Virginia to Alaska, before finally settling in D.C.
to earn her degree in English and Fine Arts from Georgetown University.
When you travel that much, you have plenty of opportunities to
develop crushes.
“When
we’re young, we have them a lot,” she says. “But
when we’re older—if we’re lucky—we can
have them too. I think crushes are fun. You don’t really
expect anything to happen, but it just makes it more fun to go
to work, more fun to go to class. I know sometimes I only wanted
to go to school just so I could run into some boy I liked!
“I
used to have it bad for this guy for like three years. His name
was Ronald, and we all had a thing for him. I remember this song
that still makes me think about him. You know that song, “Shower
Me With Your Love?”
She starts singing it, and I immediately remember the song. Only
now I remember it the way she remembers it, as the definitive
song for reliving that time you thought you were in love. Everybody
has one. Mine was “I Got Love On My Mind” by Natalie
Cole. Maybe someday, yours will be an Amerie song.
Continued in Issue #4
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