Chrisette Michele: R&B's new number one

(Credit: Jeff Riedel)

In the short two years since up-and-coming R&B sensation Chrisette Michele launched her career as the veritable first lady of Def Jam, with a timeless voice and futuristic beats, she’s earned some of the music industry’s top honors. She scored a Grammy for “Be OK,” off her debut “I Am,” and more recently topped the Billboard 200 chart with her new album, “Epiphany.” And if that’s not enough, she may have also played a musical part in restoring the friendship of rap legends Nas and Jay-Z.

The Long Island-born Michele spoke with Metromix shortly before the start of her busy summer touring schedule—and just days after she learned that she had the number one album in the country.

What was it like for you when you found out you had the number one album?
The week leading up to it was insane, out-of-control, and non-stop. But the week after, I kind of sat down and took a chill pill and just relaxed for a little bit.

Did you take that time to soak in what had happened?
Yeah—when [Def Jam head] L.A. Reid called me [to tell me], I was at the David Letterman show backstage, getting ready to go on, and I screamed and screamed and cried. And then I was like, “Wait a second, are you sure?” It took me about two or three days to fully believe that it was number one. It was cool because I had been on a rollercoaster for two months before that.

How so?
Well, there are four seasons in an artist’s year: There’s promo season, recording season, resting season, and touring season. And during promo, you are literally in two cities every day across the country and sometimes in different countries, so you don’t really get a chance to sleep or sit still for any prolonged amount of time. So I told the record label, “OK, guys, I’m gonna go and sit down for a couple of days and turn myself off and just reboot.”

That’s great, because it seems like a lot of artists don’t do that when they need it.
Yeah, it’s important. My schedule is always totally hectic, but it’s up to me to say, “Just a minute, I’ll be right back.” I think a lot of times, you’re turned into this bag of potato chips that’s being marketed as opposed to a human being who has a heart and lungs and is breathing, the same as everybody else. As the artist, I’ve always been extremely busy, but I know how to say, “Hold on, I’ll be right back.” And that’s imperative.

That potato chip mentality came into play when bloggers tried to pit you up against Ciara, who was expected to have the number one album that same week and had a lot more promotion. How did you feel about that? Did that battle have any basis in reality?
No, and I tried not to look on the Internet for maybe two months before it came out. If she had been number one, I would have been just as excited for her as for myself, to be quite honest. She works really, really hard, too, and I think we all know that. I think she’s a wonderful artist and a wonderful person. But, for me, it’s not really about the number. It’s more about the integrity of my music and who I am as a person. But it’s great that I didn’t have to wear a specific outfit or show anything [to get to number one]. It was just the vocal cords. Maybe I wasn’t on this TV show or that magazine cover, so are people really just listening to me sing? There are people who don’t even know what I look like in person. I’m not all over the place.

Do you prefer it that way?
Well, I’m patient, and I feel that my time is about to be here. I think that I’m being prepared for what’s next, and that’s it’s going to be really incredible. It’s an honor and a privilege to be number one, but I’m not taking it lightly and I don’t want it to become my reason [for singing].

People first started really hearing about you in the hip-hop world first, when you were on both Jay-Z’s and Nas’ albums. At that time, they hadn’t really made peace yet, but you kind of bridged a divide by being a musical commonality. Was that an interesting experience for you?
Oh yeah, it was really fun, and then to follow those records up with a song with the Game, it was like, “What else can you do that’s a little bit awkward, Chrisette? Sing with a huge West Coast rapper now after doing these two people who were basically throwing beef at each other in New York for however long!” But it was really fun to be a part of bridging a beautiful gap in hip-hop—because as we knew it, hip-hop was dying, and if I could have been a part of [refreshing it], I wanted to. And I was.

Do you think it brought you a lot of rap fans who might not have paid attention to a soul artist otherwise?
It’s really interesting, the amount of rappers and hip-hop heads that I come in contact with who are really supportive of my movement. I think that I have a soulful undertone and I think that hip-hop is the soul of the streets. So I think that soul recognizes soul.