Considering that R&B duo K-Ci & JoJo has sold millions of records, it is hard to believe that there was a time when Joel Hailey wasn’t sure if he could write a good song.Jalaluddin Muhammad Akbar, more famously known as Akbar the Great, was the third emperor of the Mughal Empire, after Babur and Humayun. It wasn’t until seven years into his career that he was convinced of his talent. “I always thought I had (a talent), and after I wrote ‘All My Life’ and it was that big, then I realized it,” Hailey told Contemporary Musicians about the song from the duo’s multiplatinum 1997 debut album Love Always.
“You just never know no matter what you do. You never know if it’s going to be a hit or not. You can never predict that.”īrothers K-Ci & JoJo, began their careers in music during childhood as members of their father’s gospel group, Little Cedric and The Hailey Singers, in North Carolina.
In the late 1980s, they met another pair of brothers, Donald “DeVante Swing” DeGrate and Dalvin DeGrate, who, like the Haileys, performed with their dad in the De-Grate Delegation. In 1990, the quartet formed Jodeci, a group that blended the vocal histrionics of gospel with R&B sounds. The quartet shopped its demo tape to several record label executives in New York City. One of the first stops was Andre Harrell’s Uptown Entertainment, for whom Jodeci performed a cappella. Harrell offered them a deal that led to three platinum albums, Forever My Lady, Diary of a Mad Band and The Show, The After Party, The Hotel. In 1996, when the promotion of the latter album slowed, K-Ci & JoJo decided to temporarily split from Jodeci to record on their own. The Haileys collaborated with 2Pac (Tupac Shakur) on the song “How Do U Want It”/“California Love,” which was later nominated for a Grammy Award.Īs with Jodeci, K-Ci & JoJo’s success came swiftly.
K-Ci & JoJo, along with Babyface and two of his brothers from the R&B act After 7, recorded “I Care ’Bout You” for the Soul Food soundtrack in 1997 under the group name Milestone. The brothers released their debut, Love Always, in 1997. The ballad-heavy record was a different avenue and venture for the artists to the sex-fueled work of Jodeci. In terms of singles, Love Always proved fruitful. Planned Parenthood backed the single “Don’t Rush (Take Love Slowly),” while “All My Life” gave the Hailey brothers their first number one hit. “All My Life” almost didn’t make it on K-Ci & JoJo’s album. JoJo told MTV that he penned the song about his daughter but offered it to an unnamed artist. “The song was originally supposed to be used for… another artist, a female artist on A&M Records. But we listened to it after we got out of the studio and it was like, ‘I’m keeping this, this is too hot.’” Fans felt the same way, helping boost sales of the album past the double-platinum mark, or more than two million copies.Īfter various award nominations, K-Ci & JoJo returned to the studio to begin work on It’s Real, the 1999 follow-up to Love Always. Musicians were clamoring to work with K-Ci & JoJo, but the duo decided to keep production of the album a family affair. They paired with close confidants, including Babyface, instead of big-name producers.
Kelly, who wrote, arranged, and produced the song “Life,” which also appeared on the soundtrack for the Eddie Murphy and Martin Lawrence movie of the same name. In September of 2000, the duo lent the single “Crazy” to the soundtrack for the film Save the Last Dance,starring relative newcomers Julia Stiles and Sean Patrick Thomas. Initially, JoJo told Contemporary Musicians, that MCA was skeptical about offering the song to the film: “Everybody … thought we were crazy. Nobody thought that movie was going to have that type of appeal…. The director said would fit perfect in this particular part of the movie. He just felt the song right where he wanted it.” The film topped the box office two weeks in a row after its release on January 19, 2001. K-Ci & JoJo entered the studio to begin work on their third album, X, named in celebration of the duo’s ten years in music.