DJ Spaqz chats with Jamaican flavoured R&B star Olivia about her time with 50 Cent’s G-Unit and the next steps she’s taking on her musical journey
DJ Spaqz: Welcome to Dublin! How are you feeling about being here?
Olivia: It’s always nice to visit other countries.
DJ Spaqz: So you like it?
Olivia: Of course! I’m also going to the pub later.
DJ Spaqz: You were born in Brooklyn, New York and then moved to Jamaica, How did it feel growing up in the Caribbean?
Olivia: Great! I stayed over there with my grandparents and came back to the US when I was seven years old.
DJ Spaqz: So you are Jamaican?
Olivia: Yes. Big up all my yardies!
DJ Spaqz: That explains why you wear combats in your photo shoots and music videos. Speaking of your music, in 2000 you were the first artist to be signed by J Records. How did you feel?
Olivia: That was great, it’s a wonderful experience to have Clive Davis come at you and say he wants you to be the first artist on his new label.
DJ Spaqz: When it came out that J Records were doing a reshuffling and they were dropping you from the label, and considering the fact that you sold over 180,000 albums, how did you feel about it?
Olivia: They actually dropped the single I did, which had sold over 500,000 copies on its own. This was my first problem with J Records, they should not have dropped the single because it was big and was doing well in the market.
It was a brand new record label and they really didn’t know what they were doing. So everybody was just starting to come together to figure out what their positions were and they didn’t know how to market me as an artist. They wanted everybody to be a certain way.
I came to J Records singing gospel music, so it was funny for me to come singing gospel songs and then my first single was ‘Bizounce’. It was so different to me but I had to do what I had to do. I was a brand new artist so I was not going to tell Clive Davis not to give me a million dollars.
DJ Spaqz: So you wouldn’t say ‘no’ to a million dollars?
Olivia: No!
DJ Spaqz: They say you were the first lady in G-Unit. You are always the first – why you?
Olivia: God is great, He blesses me. After leaving J Records, I went to Interscope and [label head] Jimmy Iovine, and that’s where I hooked up with 50 Cent. I was on Interscope for about six months and that’s when 50 Cent reached out to me and told me he and Dr Dre had listened to my music, and he wanted me to come and be the first lady of G-Unit.
DJ Spaqz: If I may ask, is there a second lady in G-Unit now?
Olivia: No. There are no ladies after me.
DJ Spaqz: So technically you were the first and only lady of G-Unit! Tell me, how did you and Missy Elliot come up with the song ‘Cherry Pop’?
Olivia: That song was bootlegged. We don’t even know how it got out of the studio. We were so upset because we were going to make that song our first single. After it was leaked all the DJs were calling us and saying that the song was hot, so we had no choice but to ride the wave.
It’s great that people liked it especially because it was a different vibe which had an ’80s beat to it. It was funny how we made this song, too. Missy just went and dug out some beats when we were having a few drinks in the studio.
Missy is great because she comes out with some hot stuff and she pushed me, and I did five tracks with her.
DJ Spaqz: In 2007 you left G-Unit. What happened?
Olivia: Most people don’t know that 50 Cent and I had this conversation a year before I left. I had asked to be let go from the label because I was the only R&B presence there, and there were no staff in G-Unit who knew what to do with R&B music, so basically it was 50 Cent who was trying to do everything himself.
He had so many artists that he was dealing with so he had a lot of work. It was heavy on him being an artist of his own and then having to deal with our stuff as well. I also needed to have a change and take myself to another level.
DJ Spaqz: What’s up with the story of you being sexually harassed in G-Unit?
Olivia: This was just rumour in some of the media. That is what comes out when you are the only girl in a group. It’s like, girls can’t have males as friends. It just funny how people get their facts wrong.
DJ Spaqz: Can I give some advice for where to go next on your musical journey? There is a big hype right now in Africa about urban music. They are doing it in their own language and it’s really great. So why don’t you be the first lady to do a music collab with African artists?
Olivia: I have actually been approached to do some collabs with some African artists, and now that you have mentioned it, I think I will work something out.
DJ Spaqz presents the Urban Worldwide Mix on Dublin’s Digital Hub FM 94.3. Listen to live and archived shows at www.digitalhubfm.com
