Interview of Prima J by: Clayton Perry

When performing as a duo, I imagine that it is difficult to showcase your individual personalities at times. How would you describe each other?

Janelle: Jessica – she has a very big heart. She’s always on time. And she just loves to have fun.

Jessica: Janelle – she is crazy. She loves to bungee-jump and all that crazy stuff. She is never afraid to be herself. And she always looks super-pretty because she takes forever to get ready.

Collectively, you are known as Prima J. How did you come up with the name?

Janelle: In Spanish, “prima” means “cousin.” And the letter J is the first letter of our names - Janelle and Jessica. So that’s how we became Prima J.

As first cousins, every day happens to be a family reunion. Do you ever find it difficult to get along?

Jessica: We’re like sisters. When we fight, we fight. And then when we look at each other and we start laughing - that’s how we make up. Then we’re all good for, like, a month. And then we fight again.

Janelle: Yeah, it’s all good. Besides, it’s nice to have family on the road.

How did you get your start?

Jessica: Not too long ago, we used to work as backup dancers. And one day, we got a meeting with Stefanie Ridel, who was a former group member of Wild Orchid. She helped us develop as artists and songwriters and taught us about the industry. After some time, she met with us and said, “Tomorrow, you have a meeting with Ron Fair.” We were totally not ready for that. We had one demo, and we didn’t know what to do. We went in and played him our demo. Then, we sang him a song that we had just written, and he basically said, “Congratulations!” on the spot. We’re really lucky and really blessed. That was two years ago. We’ve been working hard ever since and, now, our album is finally coming out. It’s crazy.

Few soundtracks experience a great deal of commercial success, but your first single (“Rock Star”) became the breakout hit of the Bratz soundtrack. Were you surprised by the song’s incremental success?

Jessica: It was our unofficial single, but people loved it. It was our first real look into what this could be, or what this could be like. Just the fact that we made the video for “Rock Star” and had a song out was amazing to us. It still hasn’t really hit us.

During one of the dance sequences in the "Rock Star" video, both of you sport clothing with the word "chilosa" written across the front. What is the significance of this word?

Jessica: Chilosa is a slang word in our culture that we made our own. It means a girl that’s independent, self-confident, not afraid to be who she is, very comfortable in her shoes. That’s chilosa. That’s what we want every girl to be.

Now that you’re in the spotlight, a lot of young ladies have their eyes on you. Do you feel any pressure in being labeled “role models”?

Janelle: I really think it’s a great thing. We’re really ourselves 24x7. We don’t look like the girls on the magazine. We’re still doing what we’re doing. We want all girls - everyone - to know that no matter where they come from, what they look like, if they really work hard and they want to do, they can do it.

Few cover songs receive airplay while the original song is still in rotation, but “Nadie (No One)” became your second single. What led you to include this song on Prima J?

Jessica: We love that song and we’re just like, “You know what? This song would be so beautiful in Spanish as well.” We taped it for fun - in Spanish - and it ended up bigger than what we thought it would be.

Your current single is “Corazon (You’re Not Alone)” and friendship underpins the lyrical content. What central message did you want to share with the world?

Jessica: It’s a woman empowerment song. It’s about women who’ve gone through bad relationships. We’re telling them that they can get through it. It’s going to be hard sometimes but it’s all going to be okay. Life goes on and we’re all going to make it through together because we all know what’s like. You’re not alone.

I read this interview and picked out a couple of questions and answers that i thought would be interesting to include. The message I found that they were trying to get across in their answers was that it doesnt matter who you are or what race you are dreasm really did come true, so bigger than you can imagine. These girls believed that they were going to make it and they did. They didnt plan for their songs to make it to albums but they turned out to be influential hit songs to people across the world. Please comment on what you think of this interview and you can go to the website to view the whole thing.
http://blogcritics.org/archives/2008/07/17/0848093.php