-Producer, composer and songwriter who has teamed with numerous recording artists, filmmakers and film composers including Usher, Nicki Minaj, Mick Jagger, Britney Spears and Hans Zimmer. will.i.am is a seven-time Grammy winner.

-Executive Producer/Creator, “i.am FIRST: Science is Rock and Roll”, a back-to-school primetime TV special that aired on ABC August 14, 2011 designed to get students excited about learning STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) skills in, and beyond the classroom.

-Directed and produced two TV spots for Chatter.com (salesforce.com) featuring the animated Baby Peas characters and Chatty the Cloud, February, 2011. Spots debuted during the Super Bowl bookending live performance by The Black Eyed Peas, a Super Bowl, advertising industry and artistic first.

-Selected by “Advertising Age” as a top digital creative executive in the magazine’s annual Digital Innovators Issue (February 28, 2011). Guest columnist in “Advertising Age’s” annual Consumer Issue about “communiting”, will.i.am’s approach to engage consumers and transform communities through conversations vs. traditional advertising campaigns. (October, 2011)

-Director of Creative Innovation for Intel Corporation (appointed January, 2011)

-Actor: “Rio”, “Madagascar 2: Escape To Africa”, “X-Men Origins: Wolverine”

-OWN TV, guest star/self in “Visionaries: Inside the Creative Mind” that was filmed after hours in the Musee du Louvre, Paris, France. Show premieres November 6 at 8PM ET/PT.

-Discovery Channel, guest star/self in “The Curiosity Project – The Robot Episode”, premieres Sunday, November 13 at 9 PM ET/PT.

-Founder, Dipdive Inc., a digital lifestyle online community and digital creative agency (traditional, animation, online and mobile content).

Philanthropy & Civic Service -Founder of i.am.angel foundation focused on activities that transform communities incorporating:

A) the will.i.am scholarship fund for deserving high school students to stay in school and then fund four year college tuition, launched in 2009. To date, 15 students have been awarded scholarships for the entirety of their post-secondary education;

B) i.am College Track Center, an after-school support center designed to keep at-risk high school students on a strong academic track through graduation via mentoring, home work assistance, and college application guidance. Mentoring and assistance continues as students enter and attend college;

C) i.am.home, a non-profit that helps people who are in danger of losing their homes by providing monetary assistance and financial literacy, launched in 2010.

-Co-founder, Peapod Foundation, a non-profit organization supported by The Black Eyed Peas band members to mentor and foster young musicians and performers. The Peapod Foundation, a Charitable Service Fund administered by the Entertainment Industry Foundation encourages social change by uniting people, especially children, through the universal language of music. In 2008, the foundation opened the first Peapod Music & Arts Academy, a state-of-the-art music and educational center and recording facility serving foster care youth and other at-risk teens, at the Watts/Willowbrook Boys and Girls Club. The Peapod Foundation currently serves more than 1,000 students at 5 sites across the United States (Los Angeles, San Francisco, Oakland, San Jose, New York City).

-National board member, Grammy Foundation, including support of Grammy Camp, a music camp for high school students.

-Advisor and advocate for FIRST, a teen robotics and science competition founded by inventor Dean Kamen designed to foster interest in math/science curriculum among high school students.

-Advisor, The White House Office of Public Engagement, including The First Lady’s “Joining Forces” military family support initiative, launched in April, 2011.

-Good Will Ambassador, President Obama’s 100,000 Strong Initiative that aims to dramatically increase the number, and diversify the composition of American students studying in China. will.i.am is directing and performing in a fund raising concert in Beijing on December 17, 2011 to benefit the Initiative.

-Leadership Council Member, Opportunity Nation, a bipartisan organization focused on restoring the American Dream through economic mobility through better skills, better jobs and better communities.

The relentless experimentation on Colours reflects the lively imagination of its creators, singer-songwriter Jamie Scott and songwriter-producer Tommy Danvers (who goes by TommyD) — both London-born multi-instrumentalists who began making music together in 2009 and decided to call the resulting collaboration Graffiti6. (A third member, the British artist and illustrator Jimi Crayon, designs all of Graffiti6’s artwork and is responsible for their bold logo and Technicolor visuals.)

Scott grew up enthralled with soul and folk music, thanks to his father’s love for Donny Hathaway, Curtis Mayfield, and Marvin Gaye, and his mother’s predilection toward James Taylor, Cat Stevens, Carole King, and Joni Mitchell. Upon hearing Mitchell’s Blue at the age of seven, Scott picked up a guitar and taught himself to play. “At school, friends would be talking about bands like Bon Jovi and I didn’t have a clue who they were talking about as I didn’t start to listen to pop radio till I was 15,” he says. Scott began writing songs, and, by 17, had left school to focus on a career as a musician. He signed his first publishing deal at 20, followed by a record deal with Sony Music in the U.K., and began working with Jamiroquai keyboardist Toby Smith, but his album was never released due to the merger between Sony and BMG. After signing with Polydor in 2006, Scott released his solo debut album, Park Bench Theories, under the name Jamie Scott and the Town. The album was a folky, acoustic-based affair on which Scott was backed by members of the Scottish band Travis. Jamie Scott and the Town toured for two years (including opening for Alicia Keys, Kelly Clarkson, and Take That) and built up a sizable following in Europe and Asia.

Scott was considering working with new collaborators as a way to repackage the album when an A&R executive at Polydor suggested he meet Danvers, who had remixed tracks by Michael Jackson and Björk, and arranged and orchestrated concerts and recordings, along with his wife, for Kanye West, Jay-Z, Adele, Beyoncé, and Noel Gallagher, among others. A multi-instrumentalist, Danvers grew up listening to psychedelic rock, punk, and blues music before falling in love with hip-hop at age 17. “Public Enemy, Run-DMC, LL Cool J — it was that era,” he says. “I used to fly to New York City just to buy records and sneakers.” Danvers played guitar, keyboards, drums, and sang in a number of bands around South London, worked as a tape op in a commercial studio, and sold musical and studio equipment before he began DJ’ing at a local club at age 18. Over the next 13 years, Danvers made a name for himself as a DJ. He was a resident at Ministry of Sound and a regular at Cream and Back to Basics in the U.K., as well as Danceteria, Twilo, and DV8 in the U.S. Influenced by the sound of New York’s Paradise Garage and the rise of House music, Danvers formed a production duo with musician/DJ Jeremy Healy under the name Ezee Posse. Around that time, Danvers was asked to produce a track by an unsigned band called Right Said Fred. The song, “I’m Too Sexy,” debuted at No. 1 in the U.S. and hit the Top 10 in nine countries. Although it propelled his remix career, Danvers was more interested in writing, which led to his penning several songs for KT Tunstall, Corinne Bailey Rae, Janet Jackson, and Kylie Minogue. “Jamie came along soon after that,” Danvers says.

“Tommy and I hit it off straight away,” Scott says. “I brought in an idea I had for a folk thing I was doing and he said, ‘Let’s go for it,’ so we wrote it on acoustic guitar.” The track was “Stare Into The Sun.” Scott left to go on holiday for two weeks and received an email from Danvers when he returned saying he’d done a bit of work on the track and what did Jamie think? “When I first heard it, I was like, ‘What the f**k has he done to my song?’” Scott says with a laugh. “I was literally fuming. I had been expecting it to sound like my solo album. But then after listening to it a few times, I thought, ‘That’s not going on Park Bench Theories, but I love it.’”

“I was already a fan of Jamie’s music,” Danvers says. “He was playing in this intricate style with amazing lyrics, and I just said, ‘Look, you’ve got to let rip on this, mate.’ We both love a lot of the same music, so I think I awakened the Otis Redding and Marvin Gaye in him. He has a truly unique voice. It doesn’t sound like anyone else and that’s what I love about it.”

Rather than repackage Scott’s solo album and have Danvers produce it, the two decided to start writing original material together. “I didn’t want it to be a producer producing a solo artist,” Scott says. “It was a collaboration. The sound was just too strong to be anything else.” “Basically we just thought, ‘This is really good, there’s something happening here between us,’” Danvers says. “A musical relationship is very much like a personal relationship in the sense that you’ve got to just see where the road takes you, so we put our heads down, shut the doors, and kept working.” Over the next year and a half, the songs began to pour out. “It opened a door to a whole new way I could start thinking about some of the songs, with all these big harmonies,” Scott says. Indeed every song on Colourscan be stripped down and performed on acoustic guitars and sound just as exciting. Check YouTube for Graffiti6’s stellar versions of “Annie You Save Me,” “Stone In My Heart,” “Calm The Storm,” and “Lay Me Down,” as well as covers of Adele’s “Rolling In The Deep” and Black Eyed Peas’ “I Got A Feeling.” Graffiti6’s live shows have also earned them a growing devoted fanbase around the world. “We really are just two musicians enjoying the sound we make,” Danvers says. “It’s a sound that neither of us could make without the other.”

Graffiti6 released Colours on their own NWFree Music label in the U.K. in October 2010 and in April 2011 signed to Capitol Records, which will release a digital EP in June, followed by Colours later this year. Their songs have already been heard on such shows as Grey’s Anatomy, Covert Affairs, CSI: NY, One Tree Hill, and in the new MTV series Teen Wolf. Scott has relocated from London to Los Angeles and is looking forward to spending much of his time Stateside. “I’ve been signed to record labels for nine years and I’ve always wanted to come to America,” he says. “It was the one place where we got a load of love right away from the industry, so the minute my manager said, ‘Let’s do it, let’s move,’ I said, ‘I’ve got my bags packed, man. I’ve had them packed for nine years.’”

An old soul is the last thing you would expect to find inside Justin Bieber. But all it takes is one listen to the 15 year-old soul-singing phenomenon to realize that he is light years ahead of his manufactured pop peers.

After posting dozens of homemade videos on YouTube in 2007, where the multi-talented Bieber put his impeccable spin on songs from artists like Usher, Ne-Yo and Stevie Wonder, Justin racked up over 10,000,000 views purely from word of mouth.

“I started singing about three years ago,” says the Canadian native who grew up an only child in Stratford, Ontario. “I entered a local singing competition called Stratford Idol. The other people in the competition had been taking singing lessons and had vocal coaches. I wasn’t taking it too seriously at the time, I would just sing around the house. I was only 12 and I got second place.”

In an effort to share his victory with his loved ones, Justin began posting his performance footage online. “I put my singing videos from the competition on YouTube so that my friends and family could watch them,” he says. “But it turned out that other people liked them and they started subscribing to them. That’s how my manager found me. He saw me on YouTube and contacted my family and now I’m signed!”

Seven months after Justin started posting his videos online, former So So Def marketing executive Scooter Braun flew the then 13-year old singer to Atlanta, GA to meet with his elite colleagues. As if Justin’s natural singing talent wasn’t enough to impress Scooter’s inner circle, Braun knew Bieber was also a self-taught musician who plays the drums, guitar, piano and trumpet.

“Right when we flew into Atlanta, Scooter drove us to the studio and Usher was there in the parking lot,” remembers Bieber. “That was my first time ever being out of Canada so I went up to him and was like, ‘Hey Usher, I love your songs, do you want me to sing you one?’ He was like, ‘No little buddy, just come inside, it’s cold out.’”

All it took was a short time online for Usher to realize he was in the company of a future superstar. “A week later Usher flew me back to Atlanta,” says Bieber. “I sang for him and his people and he really wanted to sign me then and there but I still had a meeting with Justin Timberlake who also wanted to sign me. It turned out Usher’s deal was way better. He had L.A. Reid backing him up and Scooter had a lot of really good connections in Atlanta. I always tease Usher now and remind him he how he blew me off the first time we met.”

In October of 2008, Justin Bieber officially signed to Island Records. His debut album, My World is an intimate look into the mind of a budding young renaissance man. With production from star hit men like The Dream and Tricky Stewart who produced “Umbrella” for Rihanna and Beyonce’s latest smash, “Single Ladies (Put A Ring On It),” Justin has everything he needs to achieve pop supremacy.

His first single, “One Time” produced by Tricky, is about one of Justin’s favorite topics, puppy love. Usher joins Justin on “First Dance” where the two share verses on a song that Bieber describes as, “A slow groovy song that people can dance to.” On the Midi-Mafia produced “Down to Earth” Justin digs deep to talk about growing up. “Bigger” finds the teenaged singer maturing at a steady rate, while motivating his listeners to strive for their goals.

“I’m looking forward to influencing others in a positive way,” says Justin. “My message is you can do anything if you just put your mind to it. I grew up below the poverty line; I didn’t have as much as other people did. I think it made me stronger as a person it built my character. Now I have a 4.0 grade point average and I want to go to college and just become a better person.”

A virtually untapped well of natural artistic talent, Justin Bieber is primed to be a solid force in music for many years to come. “I think older people can appreciate my music because I really show my heart when I sing, and it’s not corny,” he says. “I think I can grow as an artist and my fans will grow with me.” And just think, he’s just getting started.

That’s how her path to superstardom started, when the seemingly typical Florida teen took a unique, bold approach to her assignment in Communications class in early 2010. Instructed to give a 2-minute self introduction that would captivate the audience, Alexandra put an unexpected twist on her speech… by singing it!

Alexandra was no stranger to the spotlight, after all. The ability to captivate an audience was in her DNA. Her mother was the lead singer of a local rock band, and it was clear from an early age she was destined to follow suit. Alexandra’s teen years were filled with singing competitions and acting roles in local theater productions, but she really honed her craft in front of a worldwide audience of millions on the internet, where she developed a large and devoted digital fan base that would follow her all the way to the top.

Sure enough, Alexandra’s lyrical take on her homework assignment captivated the whole class, which happened to include artist manager Josh Mendez from Rich Music Ltd. “I immediately got the chills. I don’t even remember the rest of her speech,” Josh recalls. “As soon as I heard her sing, I knew we had to sign her.” After class, he introduced himself to Alexandra and immediately brought her to the attention of the label. Within weeks, she was signed to Jimmy J Management / Rich Music Ltd, a team of seasoned music professionals committed to taking the extraordinarily talented and charming singer to the next level.

Alexandra immediately entered the recording studio to record her debut album. Together with top notch producers The Agency (Ciara, Jordin Sparks, Cody Simpson), Naz Tokio (McFly) and Da Internz (Jesse McCartney, Sean Kingston), Alexandra’s first ever recording sessions churned out a number of radio-ready tracks, including the stellar first single “Superstar” – a peppy, polished pop anthem full of high energy vitality and sassy sing-along lyrics.

“‘Superstar’ is, in a sense, every aspiring artist/actor/singing-in-a-hairbrush performer’s dream! Becoming a superstar, living it up, buying whatever, wherever, WHENEVER,” Alexandra says. The single was released online in April 2010, where Alexandra’s uber-viral fanbase immediately propelled it to digital hit status, singing into their own webcams and filling Youtube with countless fan-generated “Superstar” videos.

Despite the living large theme of “Superstar,” Alexandra is remarkably gracious and unaffected. A pop fan herself, she cites influences across the spectrum including Christina Aguilera, Carrie Underwood, Rihanna, Justin Bieber and Katie Perry. “I’m a down to earth girl with big dreams and a positive outlook on life. It’s all been surreal and an absolute blessing. I’m still in shock… all because I did my homework.”

It is said of many Artists that they are born with a gift for music. While this can be an overused and sometimes incorrect expression , it really does apply to Oceana. The release of her debut album at the start of 2009 surprised us all. Knowing the story of her background, one wonders how much a person can subconsciously be influenced by the lifestyles of their parents. Is there really a musical or creative gene? Why, otherwise, does Oceana speak more of having the need to travel than of being homesick and feels the desire to keep discovering new things and expand her horizons?

OCEANA’s mother, a German Haute Couture fashion designer, moved to Paris because of job and was immediately fascinated by its varied music scene. She was especially taken with the African rhythms and in the evenings she could be found in the city’s hippest reggae clubs. There she met and fell in love with an attractive musician from the French Caribbean colony Martinique. The fruit of their love, OCEANA, followed shortly. After spending her early childhood in the “City of Love”, OCEANA moved with her mother to live near Hamburg, where they lived with her grandparents for the next few years. Mother and daughter often lived out of a suitcase, travelling between Germany and France, where OCEANA’s father was working as a musician and DJ when not travelling around the world on tour. “I always received a lot of postcards from around the world from my father. He sent me photos and videos of gigs and I thought it was great to have a father who was a musician, even if he never picked me up from school and was not there for ballet performances. I never had the “normal” family life, which most people know”. As her grandparents were sought-after Artists, it was normal for OCEANA, from an early age, to be surrounded by singers, artists, musicians and people from the film industry. One afternoon she met the legendary musician Maceo Parker, a family friend, jamming with her grandfather in the garden. Maceo Parker often asked OCEANA up on stage at his concerts and last year he even gave her a solo during one. Parker plays an important role in her life.

From an early age it was clear which direction she would take. OCEANA’s whirlwind path could not be stopped. Her mother started taking her to concerts as a young child. She saw big name Artists including Ziggy Marley, Burning Spear, James Brown and she felt drawn to the stage, where she wanted to sing and dance. She took ballet lessons, danced through studios and at the age of five she was given a part in a film directed by Hamburg’s Lars Becker. As a teenager she won a music scholarship and had her first singing lesson with the Italian vocalist Etta Scollo. Her natural strength and disciplined nature have helped OCEANA to establish herself and make her way in the business.

Today OCEANA is a modern, confident young woman, who knows what she wants. She actually knew what she wanted from an early age. She moved away from home when she was 16 years old, travelling constantly for the next few years. “I always had an extraordinary lifestyle, was always independent and boxed my own way through life. I didn’t need pocket money – I learned from early on, how to manage on my own.” OCEANA never felt homesick, but always felt the need to travel and sees herself as a “citizen of the world”. A real cosmopolitan, she has lived in Paris, Hamburg, London, New York, Los Angeles and a fair amount of time in Martinique, in order to discover her Caribbean roots. She earned her living through gigs and was constantly improving her knowledge of song and dance. Aside from music, she is particularly interested in fashion and photography. She is also very loyal to her family and friends.

When she moved back to Germany she worked as choreographer on videos for Seeed and Fettes Brot. She has also worked as a backing singer for Seeed’s lead vocalist Demba Nabé and has gained live stage experience on tour with Seeed and Boundzound. Just lately she was support act for Germany’s Peter Fox.

It was Maceo Parker, who last year made her finally start thinking about working on her own career as a vocalist. “He gave me the deciding PUSH! Over the years I had kept writing my own material, but after a concert Maceo said to me “You’re ready now; do your own thing!”". Luckily this sentence took seed and she did not forget it. She started working in London on several songs and travelled to New York to record her debut album “LOVE SUPPLY”. Suddenly things started to move quickly, the team worked well and they produced a fantastic album in a short period of time, which mixes the finest soul-pop, funk, R’n'B and reggae to make the rounded, international-sounding, top-quality album.

“Together our cultures combine and give us a different sound and a different look than you would see in a typical R&B group,” Penny. “We all come from different backgrounds,” Rude Boi. “Me, I’m African American. Pretti Sly is from South Africa and Penny is White. Each member’s influence on the group is different.”
Hailing from Ft. Lauderdale, Florida, Penny and Rude Boi met in high school at the Dillard School of the Arts. There, they studied various performing arts including musical theatre and vocal training. “Our school was predominantly Black so that developed my interest in hip-hop and R&B and helped my swag,” says Penny. “We had a gospel choir in our school that I was a part of and that was really a big help in me learning different vocal arrangements and chords.”
Meanwhile, Rude Boi met up with Pretti Sly soon after he relocated to the US from South Africa. “As soon as I got here, I met Rude Boi at a talent show and we decided to form a group with Penny” says Sly.
In their first years of high school, the boys created the group Deep Side and instead of keeping their combined talent under wraps, they planted themselves in the center of the teenaged universe. “Every Saturday and Sunday we used to be just performing inside the mall,” says Rude Boi. “If we’d see pretty girls walking by, we’d stop them and sing for them.” The guys also entered local talent shows, where they were approached by their former manager who was their first ticket into a legitimate recording studio.

Not long after, Deep Side was invited to perform in Chicago at R. Kelly’s birthday party. At the time, they had recorded a song called “Shook” which was getting radio play in select markets. R. Kelly was thoroughly impressed by the young group’s performance and connected them to his A&R Wayne Williams who was signed the guys to their first label deal. Two years later, the group decided to leave the label and break ties with their former manager and head out once again on their own.

In 2008, the guys moved to Atlanta and wrote and recorded “Booty Music” under their new group name, Git Fresh. The highly addictive hit quickly picked up hundreds of spins in major markets across the country. It wasn’t long before the boys were fielding calls from multiple major labels. Although they incited a multi-label bidding war, Git Fresh saw the most prosperous future with Def Jam Records.

“We went into L.A. Reid’s office and we performed two acapella songs for him and he was sold after that,” says Rude Boi about Git Fresh’s audition for the Island Def Jam Chairman. “I remember jumping on L.A.’s desk! He told us we weren’t leaving New York without signing to Def Jam.”
Git Fresh solidified their deal in the beginning of 2009 and quickly got started recording their debut album. Around the same time, they also joined Strong Arm Management, who also manages hit maker Flo Rida. Git Fresh’s first single, “She Be Like” is a fresh take on Suzanne Vega’s hit “Tom’s Diner” where the guys ride through the club popping bottles, while “What’s Your Favorite Place” finds them singing about their favorite places to entertain their lucky guests.
On “Earth, Wind, and Fire” the boys express their love over a moody, up-tempo track that leads into “Singin,’” a playful song that talks about mattress springs overpowering their mood music during a raucous love making session.

“We like to go out and have fun,” says Rude Boi. “That’s who we are. We’re young guys in the prime of our lives and our album is definitely a party album, it’s all about the ladies. We don’t even like to consider ourselves as R&B, we just make good music. The sound is new and fresh, it’s something that you wouldn’t expect to hear from a three man group that’s just crooning.”

Combining their different backgrounds and experiences, Git Fresh has managed to find a perfect musical balance. Citing Michael Jackson, Jodeci, and Sam Cooke as influences, Penny, Rude Boi and Pretti Sly all bring a valuable piece to their collective puzzle.

“We have a lot of different styles—a lot of crazy melodies and different influences that you’ll hear in the music,” says Rude Boi. “We could sit down in front of you and sing harmony all day or we could sing a club song so I like to think the group is extremely well rounded in that way.”
Git Fresh—A more perfect union.

Born Fredrick Thomas into a household rich in music, R&B and Rap won his alliance at an early age. His father, who worked as security at the Tunnel, one of New York City’s most prominent Hip Hop clubs, frequently brought the hottest records home before they hit the air-waves, a cherished treasure among a household of seven children. Fred had fallen in love at the age of eight and would, despite being diagnosed with asthma, begin his ascent to achieving his dream of becoming a rapper.

Already known throughout Monroe High School for his quick wit, Fred began free-styling in the late 90’s turning his tongue into a lyrical gem. His delivery, seemingly effortless, and considering his severe asthma condition it was everything but. Years of maturation, over-coming personal hardships and tragedies so common to those who inhibit the ruthless streets of the South Bronx, Fred emerged as an exceptional lyricist. His astute talent for creating metaphors that register to listener’s hours later, is perhaps his most distinctive gift; a gift that won him “Best Male Rapper” at the 2007 Underground Music Awards and editorial in industry magazines such as Juice and XXL.

Attaining a devoted fan base with hugely successful mixtapes They Call Me Flow and American Gangster, and his most recent single “Get ‘em Fred,” currently flooding radio, Fred’s putting Hip Hop on notice, “The Bronx is back!” He’s gained the respect of music industries’ toughest critics and greatest tastemakers, New York’s DJs. DJ Enuff, Suss One, Self and Envy are just a few that are coining Fred the Godson as “Hip Hop’s Messiah.”

Still working with long time contributors TBM/Blockwork but under new management, Fred has returned to the studio. Now guided by famed music execs Shawn Prez (BadBoy Entertainment) and Jer-z (Interscope Records/TakeOver Entertainment), Fred the Godson forges ahead working on his first mainstream debut with his lead street single “Get ‘em Fred” already gaining momentum and “Flawless Victory” set to drop. In an industry flooded with artists claiming to bring rap back to its “Golden Era,’ Fred stands alone, capable with a myriad of talent and rhyming versatility.

“I know everybody’s gone through pain,” Jenna confides. “I talk to the little girl in me or the little girls that are dealing with similar things to remind them that you can do big things in your lives if you have hope.”

Relying on that very hope, Jenna left home after just six months of college, determined to make a name for herself in Vancouver. The going was rough; some nights she couldn’t afford to fill her gas tank, preventing her from getting to work. So she would spend those car-bound nights learning the guitar and writing songs; how ironic that a car without gas would eventually steer her to the office of Chairman Antonio ‘L.A.’ Reid, where she’d sign to Island Def Jam. That said, the more you learn about Jenna Andrews, the less surprised you become to hear of unwavering determination.

Music, particularly jazz and R&B, was her mother’s passion. She would take Jenna on long drives and introduce her to great vocalists like Donnie Hathaway and legendary singer/ songwriters such as Carly Simon and Carole King. As a young girl, Jenna connected with the music of her mother’s generation more than the music of her own peers. “Melody can make you feel any given emotion—happy, sad, angry,” she explains. “But lyrics are hugely important because when you attach amazing lyrics to the melody, it synchs. A great song resonates like nothing else in the world.”

Jenna’s mother noticed her daughter’s innate talent but didn’t want to push her. Jenna, however, needed no such prodding. She learned the piano by ear and started writing songs when she was just 14 years old. She would eventually travel with a youth performance troupe. By high school, her performances at downtown Calgary nightclubs fetched as many as 500 patrons per night. So while Jenna was scribbling furiously in her song book, so too would the proverbial writing appear on the wall.

Jenna decided to leave college, and her family, and move to Vancouver. She scraped out a meager existence playing at open mic nights. “I wanted to struggle, and I wanted to really, really discover myself as a musician and as a person,” Jenna reveals. “I just wanted to go through the pain because I felt like it was helping my music.” How prophetic this would prove.

With no money for Christmas presents that year, Jenna instead composed a song for her parents entitled “Adore.” “It was never meant to be exploited,” Jenna explains. “I really wasn’t thinking of it having anything to do with my career. It was just for my love of the music, and for my parents.” Yet this personal ditty trigged public groundswell when the studio owner/producer heard the song and insisted that Jenna make it available via MySpace. She did, and promptly fielded calls from industry heavyweights Bryant Reid (brother of L.A. Reid) and Toronto-based Chris Smith Management, the force behind Nelly Furtado among others.

Jenna signed with Chris Smith and spent the next year writing and recording with hitmakers ranging from Babyface to Max Martin (Pink, Carrie Underwood, Britney Spears, Celine Dion). The result is eclectic—pop to jazz with funk and soul elements, and even some sultry beats. But more apt than any genre label is a feel. It’s real. “My album is heartfelt and honest. It came out very naturally,” Jenna delights. “Every song is really close to my heart. I want my listeners to feel like I’m right beside them in any circumstance they face.” And certainly Jenna has navigated some rough seas, particularly a negative body image that triggered an enduring eating disorder. But her travails alone won’t define her. “There is a lot more going on here than just pain,” she insists. “I feel like you need your first album to show your different colors. I don’t want it to seem like I’m this dark person all the time.”

Adam Levine, the band’s lyricist, began writing the songs that appear on Hands All Over after winding down from a world tour in support of It Won’t Be Soon Before Long. A few months later, Maroon 5 received a phone call from veteran studio wizard Robert John “Mutt” Lange (AC/DC, Foreigner, The Cars), who had heard that Maroon 5 were beginning to write a new album and expressed an interest in producing it. “We didn’t even talk to anyone else,” Levine says. “Mutt is undeniably one of the most successful producers who’s ever lived.”

Levine’s first performing experience — in fact the event that ignited his desire to become a singer and musician — actually involves Lange. The story goes like this: 20 years ago, when Levine was 10, he attended a friend’s birthday party “at one of those places in the San Fernando Valley where the kids dress up in rock’n’roll gear and lip-sync their favorite songs,” he says. Levine chose the Def Leppard classic “Pour Some Sugar On Me.” “I knew I could sing because my music teacher told me I had a voice, but I had never really performed before. I grabbed the mic and just went for it. Afterwards I knew that I’ve got to do this for the rest of my life. That’s what got the whole ball rolling for me.” The classic anthem “Pour Some Sugar On Me” was, of course, famously produced by Lange. “If that’s not a full 360, I don’t know what is,” Levine says. “It doesn’t get more circular than that.”

In July 2009, the members of Maroon 5 — Levine, keyboardist Jesse Carmichael, bassist Mickey Madden, guitarist James Valentine, and drummer Matt Flynn — decamped to Lange’s studio in Vevey, Switzerland, on the north shore of Lake Geneva where they worked distraction-free with the Swiss Alps looming in the distance. “Just being near those majestic mountains and lakes was so inspiring,” says Jesse Carmichael. “Waking up and seeing these giant snow-capped peaks, it set the tone for the record and made the whole thing feel like some sort of magical summer camp experience.” Adds Carmichael: “Mutt really helped us play to the best of our ability. And it drove us to be bigger and better than ever. Everything he does is huge.”

“Huge” is a good way to describe Hands All Over, starting with the hard-rocking title track that is heavier than anything Maroon 5 has ever done. Says Valentine: “It doesn’t sound like anything we’ve done so far.” Another stylistic departure is “Out of Goodbyes,” a stunning country ballad that features musical and vocal contributions from Nashville chart-toppers Lady Antebellum. “We’ve always loved country music,” Levine says, “and they brought that necessary twang to it with the lap steels, ambient guitar, and Hillary Scott’s pretty country voice.” Other highlights include the deeply groovy “Don’t Know Much About That,” the propulsive “Stutter” (“a great showcase for Adam’s voice,” Valentine says) and “Misery,” which will thrill long-time Maroon 5 fans with its funky guitars and high-stepping melody.

Maroon 5 first hit it big in 2002 with Songs About Jane, which went quadruple platinum and spawned four hit singles: the blockbuster Top 40 No. 1 “This Love,” the Top 5 “She Will Be Loved,” as well as “Harder to Breathe” and “Sunday Morning.” Its success cemented their status as a world-class rock band and led to a 2005 Grammy Award win for “Best New Artist.” They followed up Songs About Jane with Acoustic (2004), a collection of unplugged songs, and Live — Friday the 13th (2005), which earned them a second Grammy for “Best Pop Performance by a Duo or Group With Vocal” for the 2006 live recording of “This Love.”

In May 2007, Maroon 5 released It Won’t Be Soon Before Long, which debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard Top 200 album chart, selling nearly half a million copies its first week of release. The Grammy-nominated album featured several hits, including “If I Never See Your Face Again” and “Makes Me Wonder,” which earned Maroon 5 their third Grammy, once again for “Best Pop Performance By A Duo or Group With Vocals.” In 2009, they released Call & Response: The Remix Album, an 18-track “mixtape” that featured Pharrell Williams, Mark Ronson, Swizz Beatz, Paul Oakenfold, and many others, putting a new twist on the band’s biggest hits. Maroon 5 also collaborated with Rihanna on a Grammy-nominated new version of “If I Never See Your Face Again,” which appeared on the re-release of the Barbados-born pop star’s 2007 album Good Girl Gone Bad. (Levine has also collaborated with Ying Yang Twins, Kanye West, Alicia Keys, Natasha Bedingfield, and K’naan.)

Along the way, Maroon 5 toured the world, including a sold-out headlining tour of the U.S., during which they partnered with environmental action organization Reverb to reduce their carbon footprint. Known for their commitment to the environment, Maroon 5 also became members of the NRDC (Natural Resources Defense Council) and were honored at the 2006 Environmental Media Awards and have pledged both time and energy toward Global Cool, an initiative launched to fight global warming by motivating a billion people worldwide to reduce their personal energy use.

It won’t be any different in 2010 when Maroon 5 release Hands All Over, which is as accessible and broadly appealing as anything the band has ever done, including their breakthrough smash Songs About Jane. “Every record should be like our first, that’s the way we think about it,” Levine says. “We don’t ever want to rest on our laurels or get too cozy. We always want to keep aspiring to do our best — and this album captures that.”

‘I Like It’ is the first international single from the forthcoming album, produced by Red One, it features a vocal cameo from Lionel Richie, reprising the chorus of his timeless hit ‘All Night Long’. The track is an upbeat floor-filler and comes backed with a crazy hot remix from #1 selling US rapper Pitbull (‘I Know You Want Me’). Enrique was thrilled to work with his friend Lionel Richie, but it was Pitbull who really took it out of him. “Man, working with Pitbull, it’s like he’s got everybody in the world’s mojo, his energy is so intense. And shooting the video together was just insane… ”

Other tracks on Euphoria include Enrique’s Spanish-language smash ‘Cuando Me Enamoro’, featuring Latin superstar Juan Luis Guerra, which crash landed in top 10s across Latin America and Spain on its release. Then there’s the sizzling ‘Heartbeat’, a duet with Nicole Scherzinger of the Pussycat Dolls. It’s utterly pop but emotionally naked. Says Enrique, “If you can create an upbeat song and still put sentiment in it like that… man, that song is raw.”

‘One Day At A Time’, is a departure into mellow calypso, the melody coming to Enrique after he had spent so long battling on the song that he was driving home from the studio in despair. “I turned straight round and went back to record it,” explains the perfectionist. “It was one of those special songs that make you fight for it.” ‘Dirty Dancer’ is a party piece, thick with slamming synthesisers and featuring vocals from Usher, who announces that this is a song “for the dirty girls, all around the world.”

Born in Spain, raised in Miami, and now an international superstar, Enrique discovered his musical talent young, but got his first record deal from a small Mexican label while using a fake name. In 1995 he won a Grammy for his first ever Spanish release (Enrique Iglesias) and in 1999 his eponymous English language debut went on to sell six million albums, go double-platinum in the US, and achieve gold or platinum status in 32 countries. Since then he has had a string of successful albums, from Escape (2001), 7 (2003) and Insomniac (2007) to his Greatest Hits album (2008), while his sold-out world tours have established him as a captivating live performer.

In the US he is one of the biggest-selling Spanish artists of all time, with over 12 million albums sold and 19 #1 Billboard Latin hits across the Americas. Meanwhile, in the UK Enrique has sold 2.2 million albums and 1.6 million singles, the biggest of which – the inimitable ‘Hero’ – spent four weeks at #1 and is now a staple of teary X Factor scenes. Enrique has had 12 top 20 singles, and six Top 10 singles in the UK, including ‘Bailamos’, ‘Could I Have This Kiss Forever’, ‘Escape’, ‘Not In Love’ (ft Kelis), and ‘Do You Know’.

Traditionally, Latin artists release Spanish and English versions of the same songs. “But I always wanted to combine completely different songs, rather than translate them,” Enrique explains. “I’d write one I liked in Spanish, but then I’d write one I liked even more in English, so then there’d be this internal competition to write an even better one in Spanish, and vice versa. The US is now the biggest market for Spanish songs, so this is an experiment.”

“I know people always believe their new record is the best thing they’ve ever done, but truly, this record is my most diverse, my most exciting and the most surprising album I’ve made in my career,” he says, grinning wildly. The anticipation is tangible.