Alison Stewart: This is All Of It on WNYC. I'm Allison Stewart. If you've seen Moulin Rouge lately, you might recognize the woman playing Satine. It's JoJo, as in Joanna "JoJo" Levesque. When she was just 13 years old, JoJo had a major record deal and had a breakthrough with Leave.

[MUSIC - JoJo: Leave (Get Out)]

Alison Stewart: Never gets old. Now at 33, JoJo's candid new memoir reveals what happened in those 20 years. It's titled Over the Influence. In it, she discusses how her mom and dad met in AA, growing up in New Hampshire, falling in love with music. She also recalls moments when a legal dispute with her former label put an end to the contract she signed as a minor. JoJo has released four more studio albums, including Trying Not to Think About It in 2021. As I mentioned, she's currently starring in Broadway musical, Moulin Rouge. JoJo will have a book event at the Strand tomorrow. Seven o'clock?

Joanna "JoJo" Levesque: I don't know what time.

Alison Stewart: Somebody look it up.

Joanna "JoJo" Levesque: It's going to be great.

Alison Stewart: JoJo, welcome to the show.

Joanna "JoJo" Levesque: Thank you so much. I'm happy to be here.

Alison Stewart: You worked in the music industry, entertainment industry, for over two decades now. You signed when you were just a little person, actually. When you think back to that 12-year-old girl, what was she most excited about when she signed her first deal?

JoJo: Singing. I've been so obsessed with singing and connecting with songs and people since I can remember. I started singing when I was two years old, and I grew up watching VH1 and Pop-Up Video and MTV and all that. I'm a millennial, and Divas Live, and I just wanted to be my own version of those divas that I saw.

At 12, I had already been working for 10 years, and I was like, "Oh, it's right on time that I signed my record deal. I've been doing this my whole life." I had been covering songs, and it was so exciting to have original songs of my own that I started making my first album.

Alison Stewart: You told Time Magazine that you're a fan of memoirs and nonfiction. However, you said that it was really weird writing a memoir on your own about you. What aspects of writing about your life did you find strange?

JoJo: Well, I just wanted to do it justice. I've never written this extensive of a work before. Songs are three minutes long, a newsletter is one thing, but a whole book? I just wasn't sure what I was really getting myself into, but I wanted to give myself the opportunity to trust my own ability and to tell my story because it's uniquely mine, it's imperfect. I would say that the weird thing about it was just questioning your own memories and just maybe wondering and comparing it to-- I interviewed people in my life that have been there for a long time to get their perspective too, so it wasn't just coming from me.

I asked my mom, "What do you remember about this?" My manager, who used to work for my former label, "What do you remember about this?" And aunts and uncles and friends and stuff. I just think memory is so interesting. What we choose to remember, what we not choose, it's just fascinating.

Alison Stewart: That's how you kept yourself accountable, by interviewing other people?

JoJo: Yes. Looking back at journals, too, that I've been keeping since 15.

Alison Stewart: Oh, my gosh. What does a 15 year old's journal look like?

JoJo: It's interesting because a lot of-- it was cute to see my handwriting evolve and stuff like that, and how obsessed I was about a particular boy who I just don't care at all about anymore. It's amazing, but also the patterns that have occurred over the years, the things that I've been hung up on that have been a theme.

Alison Stewart: Did anybody report back to you different than you remembered?

JoJo: Me and my mom's memory differed on some things because also we had different vantage points. She was managing me, and she was the first line of defending me against this industry, I guess, that she didn't want me exposed to but we were a part of. She was going through things emotionally and really struggling with depression and anxiety, and so I had that vantage point, and she, I think, blocked out certain things, and I blocked out certain things, so it was just really interesting the way our minds work.

Alison Stewart: I should say that you love your parents. That's very, very clear.

JoJo: Love my parents, yes.

Alison Stewart: But you do open the book-- you do. You just open the book with a story about Alcoholics Anonymous. "The smoky, fluorescent-lit halls of Alcoholics Anonymous," you say. Why did you start with your parents addiction? Let's start there.

JoJo: Well, as I got older, I realized that the way that I talk about things or the way that I think about addiction might be different from people who didn't grow up with two parents who are self-proclaimed addicts, and who met in AA, but both went out of the program and were struggling for different points of my life. It was just always like a language that was a part of our family, from the serenity prayer to-- it was always hanging on the wall, or I'd be going to support them at their meetings and things like that.

I didn't realize that that's kind of unique and that that might shape my experience in a certain way, and so I wanted to give that context in the way that my story unfolds and how I went from a place of self-righteousness, like, "I'm never going to be like my parents," to then being like, "Oh, actually, I not only have their DNA, but my life has unfolded in a way that I have struggled with my own addictions," and it's come up in many different ways, not just substances.

Alison Stewart: What would you want someone to know what it was like to grow up with parents who had addiction problems? What would you want somebody to take away from your story?

JoJo: What I would want someone to feel is that they're not alone if they have that experience. That's a reason why I included it in this book because I knew that my upbringing was a little bit different than some of my friends because I just never knew-- It felt like a shaky ground, particularly when my parents were struggling with their addictions, their respective addictions.

It felt like you don't know what you're going to get when you come home. I know that's relatable, whether it's alcoholism or just parents aren't perfect, so I think that I took that on. I was an only child and already an old soul, and I think that my sensitivity was heightened, probably because you're trying to anticipate, "What did I do to make them this way?" You take that on, you're like, "Is this my fault somehow?" Because we don't know as little kids. All we know is that dad is really happy, or he's falling asleep in his food, or he's really angry, and you don't know how to make sense of that.

Alison Stewart: You write about your mom. "That voice. Mom truly had a gift from God. A strong, clear, angelic soprano range that moved any and everybody who heard her sing." Tell us about your voice, your mom's voice, where they connected.

JoJo: My voice is definitely because of my parents' voices. My mom was the most sought after soloist at our catholic church at St. Mary's in Foxborough, Mass. My dad would just pull out the guitar and jam, he was like a blues brother type, and I grew up trying to sound like both of them. My ear was always pretty sharp, and the music that they fell in love to was playing while I was in the womb.

Then for the short period of time that they were together when I was a kid, they were listening to soul music and folk and all different types of stuff. I'm so glad that I got to grow up harmonizing with them and stuff because that's just such fond memories of our time together.

Alison Stewart: My guest is Joanna "JoJo" Levesque. What do you prefer? Just JoJo? Joanna?

JoJo: Oh, all of it applies.

Alison Stewart: Okay. [laughs]

JoJo: I'm with all of it. JoJo. Joanna. I know it's really-- I was thinking Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson inspired me to be like it's okay to have this long name because he was known as The Rock. If you were familiar with me when I was just a fetus, then it's JoJo, but it all applies.

Alison Stewart: Okay, so Joanna "JoJo" Levesque. The name of the book is Over the Influence, it's a memoir. You were right in it from the time you were a little kid. You tried out for Kids Say the Darndest Thing. You begged your mom to go to Boston. What did you want the casting people to see?

JoJo: I wanted them to see that I had no fear and that I knew everything about music. I mean, that I could know. I was a personal radio because I listened to so much music. I wanted them to know that I was an old soul, and I wanted to freak them out with, like, "Oh, yes, I know this song." I liked freaking people out, I think, because I was six years old and I was singing Aretha and Etta and Ella. I wanted them to think that that was weird because I liked that.

Alison Stewart: As you navigated your way through the industry, what was a lesson that has served you well?

JoJo: It's business. It's not personal.

Alison Stewart: Interesting.

JoJo: I think that's something that I learned really young, and I think that it helped me in some ways to dissociate, but then because I learned it so young, I think I became way too logical in my head and maybe less emotional in friendships and relationships because I was like, "Oh, everyone's just looking out for themselves, so I need to do that same thing because people are going to do what's best for them. Don't take it personally."

I don't think that I knew how to differentiate when it was appropriate to use that. Do you know what I mean? I learned very young that people are going to do what's best for them, and if you don't serve them best, they're going to keep moving.

Alison Stewart: Well, as you and your mom sort of navigate the industry when you're young, how did she protect you from some of the dangers that face kids in the industry?

JoJo: She protected me from keeping me in a bubble where she was like if anybody had an opinion about anything really, she just wouldn't-- it was just-- She didn't let me travel by myself till I was 18 either, until the day I turned 18. She would be right by my side. I think that that was a big protection, but there were moments like I talk about in the book where I'd be doing a festival or something, and there'd be a creepy older artist who-- There's no way this dude didn't know I was 13, 14 years old but was talking about he wanted to take me back to his island and blah, blah, blah. My mom told him off and was like, "You're disgusting," and that was my mom, and I love her for that.

Alison Stewart: You signed to Barry Hankerson's label, Blackground Records. He's the uncle of the late singer Aaliyah, by the way, for people who don't know. What kind of reputation did Barry have back in the day?

JoJo: Great question. Barry had a reputation for being someone you don't mess with, so I liked that. I thought that was cool, actually. I felt protected. I'm like dope. Being someone you don't mess with and someone who is scrappy and made something from nothing, really. That was inspiring. He took Aaliyah around to a bunch of different record labels, but she was so young that everybody was like, "No, we want to develop her for a while," and he was like, "No, she's ready right now."

He was also managing R. Kelly at the time, so he brought them together, and literally, the rest is history. Also, that's insane with the context of what we know now, so knowing that he had had such incredible success with Aaliyah was really exciting for me and my mom I think. He made it feel like we were a family very quickly, and I think that was appealing to me and my mom. We both come from broken homes and were looking for a sense of family.

Alison Stewart: Your mother worried a little bit about him and sort of you being a teenager and being involved in this business. What were her some main concerns about the music industry for you?

JoJo: I think what irked her the most was everybody blowing my head up, everybody telling me how great I was. She just thought that my ego was getting inflated, and it was. Like there's no way-- how do you not?

Alison Stewart: It's true. [laughs]

JoJo: Then she didn't have anybody to support her. She didn't have a husband or partner, and my dad was in the throes of his addiction, and they weren't together, so he just wasn't really around for that. Actually, he was kind of excited by it all too, so he was kind of gassing me up as well, and my mom was like, "No, you're not that great, actually. Like chill out." Then she was very kind of hard in that, and so that, of course, didn't make me like her very much during that time. I think that was probably her biggest concern, that everybody was just telling me they love me, and that's not true. You don't even know me.

Alison Stewart: Right, so as a kid, you rebelled. All kids rebel, but you also have the money, the position to like really rebel.

JoJo: Right. I had my own Amex.

Alison Stewart: When you think back on the moment when you got a little bit out of hand, when you thought to yourself, "You know what? I don't want to be this person going forward. I don't want to be beholden to alcohol or anything else." Do you remember that moment?

JoJo: Oh, I mean, that was later. I mean, probably after my dad passed. When I really was needing to take a hard look at the way that I was dealing with things. I started probably drinking after 18, 19. I mean, I had my first experience with it on the road when I was like 14.

Alison Stewart: It's a pretty funny story. [laughs]

JoJo: Yes, it is a pretty funny story in the book. Got drunk on a tour bus, blacked out, and then was like, "Okay, let me not ever do this again." My mom grounded me, of course. Took away my phone.

Alison Stewart: Went and bought a new one.

[laughter]

JoJo: I went and bought a new one. I hid it from her in my backpack. She felt that she had created a monster, and I'm a teenager. This is par for the course is what I was thinking, and who really knows? I don't know.

Alison Stewart: In the book, you discuss your lawsuit against Da Family and Blackground to get released from your contract, which happened in 2014. What kind of freedom and autonomy were you looking for as an artist?

JoJo: All I was looking for was the ability to release music. They were no longer a functioning record label, and they didn't have the mechanisms in place to be able to put out music at all, so they were holding up. They had other lawsuits against them with other artists. I think Toni Braxton and Timbaland and stuff. It was a sinking ship that, unfortunately, I was still attached to. Wanted to try to make things work, tried to make things work with them for years. Then when it was obvious that it wasn't going to work out, I filed this lawsuit.

I was just looking to move forward in my career because so much time had already been lost. Literally, the day after I got released, I signed a contract that had already been negotiated with Atlantic, and I didn't get any damages from Blackground. I wasn't looking for any monetary things. I just was looking to move forward in my life because I had lost so much time. I recorded hundreds of songs. None of them were coming out. It was really deeply frustrating.

Alison Stewart: Oof. Yes, tell me more about that.

JoJo: It was really depressing and confusing and hard to see other people that had opened for me on tour essentially take a spot that I felt like was mine in pop music. I don't look at it that way anymore. I really do accept that things happen for a reason, and it's meant to redirect us in a place that's perfect. It was very hard for me at the time because I felt like-- Everyone was telling me, "This is the prime of your life, and you need to have the eye of the tiger, and you need to go out and get it and eat everyone alive," and I'm like, "Yes, you're right, and I was all gassed up."

I was just feeling a lot of fear and anxiety that my hourglass was running out of sand, and so I was just trying to just keep up. I was very deeply influenced by the rat race of it all and the competition and the chop people's heads off and stuff. That's actually not my nature. I was actually kind of taking on a nature that doesn't feel like me, but it was what I subscribed to for a long time.

Alison Stewart: What do you think about those times now that you're a grown up?

JoJo: I think that that was-- I was really trying to cope through those times because I was in the studio all day long, and then my nervous system, I was so in fear, so in fight, flight, or freeze that then I'm drinking and taking substances and just trying to be okay and not feel my feelings because I'm so afraid.

I'm so afraid that I'm going to be poor again, that I'm going to have to go back and live in an apartment with my mom, and that I won't be able to take care of her or myself anymore. I just felt all this pressure, the weight of the world on myself. Whether necessary or not, that's just how I felt. I look back at those times and I feel a lot of compassion and empathy for my younger self and how sad and afraid I was, and then how hurt I was, and then how I was hurting other people in the process and hurting myself, my internal life.

Alison Stewart: My guest is Joanna "JoJo" Levesque. We're talking about her memoir, Over the Influence. She'll be at the Strand, but it's sold out, which is exciting.

JoJo: Yay. I'm grateful.

Alison Stewart: First of all, before that we run out of time, where's your New England accent?

JoJo: Does it not come out? Is it not here at all anymore? A little bit. You'll see it a little bit. I think it comes out when I'm home. When I'm around family, it definitely comes out a little bit more.

Alison Stewart: More? Where's your bubbler? You're in New England.

JoJo: Where's the bubbler? You get it.

Alison Stewart: In your book, you said, "People always say life begins at the end of your comfort zone, and the older I get, the more I find this to be true." What's a way you've gotten out of your comfort zone?

JoJo: By jumping into my first Broadway musical and being a leading lady in that. Playing Satine in Moulin Rouge isn't like a way to just dip your toe into it. I'm coming down from the ceilings. We have 12 costume changes. I'm falling in love. I'm dying. Sorry, spoiler alert.

Alison Stewart: [laughs]

JoJo: It's a lot going on. That scared the crap out of me, but it makes me feel so alive. I'm literally just so energized by the community and by the actual storytelling of it. It's amazing. I thought that I'd never have a feeling like this. I thought that those feelings might have peaked, but this is one of the times of my life, and I know I'm going to look back on it and just be like, "Wow, it was so full." I feel like a little kid again in that type of exploration and excitement.

Alison Stewart: What have you learned about yourself writing your memoir?

JoJo: I learned that there are patterns that keep coming up until you take a look at them, and then maybe you want to change them, or maybe you're like, "Oh, that's fine," or, "That's me." I've learned how to accept the host of contradiction that I am and be comfortable with that and be clear eyed about it. It's been a really cool process of embracing my authenticity and every side of my story, whether or not it's perfect, I'm not embarrassed anymore.

Alison Stewart: The name of the book is Over the Influence: A Memoir. My guest has been Joanna "JoJo" Levesque. It was really nice to meet you. I'm so glad you came in.

JoJo: Thank you so much for having me.

 

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