After The High Road, Jojo wouldn’t release another studio album for 10 years until Mad Love in 2016, after successfully severing ties with her old label. As is too often the case when an artist disappears for no apparent reason, it was eventually revealed that Jojo was embroiled in a nasty years-long battle with her label, Blackground Records, that culminated with her suing them in 2013 to get out of her contract after endless conflicts, including her alleging the label forced her to lose weight by withholding the release of her music.
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In fact, JoJo had continued to release music independently through a series of mixtapes, YouTube covers, and demos that her cult-like fanbase devoured but flew mostly under the mainstream radar. After her debut album JoJo went multi-platinum in 2004 when she was only 13, she followed it up with The High Road in 2006 and another smash hit in the single “Too Little, Too Late,” cementing her status as the pop laureate of teenage heartache.Īnd then, suddenly, JoJo fell off the radar.īut it certainly wasn’t for lack of trying. If anyone thought she would be another casualty in an oversaturated pop market (RIP, Willa Ford), JoJo managed to prove the naysayers wrong time and time again. JoJo, with her soulful vocals and wide-eyed appeal, seemed poised for pop superstardom from the moment she released her #1 hit “Leave (Get Out)” and caused every teenage girl (plus me) to dump our imaginary no-good boyfriends. Even in the early ‘00s, when the next Britney Spears was seemingly popping up by the dozen, there was always something special about the pop singer. While Jojo may not be taking a career road less traveled, The High Road does make time for some surprising and memorable pit stops along the way.You remember JoJo. Similarly, "Good Ol'" is the best summer anthem ever to see release in the fall, and "'Comin' for You" smartly borrows some of Kelly Clarkson's rock energy. Cuts such as the gorgeous and dreamy "Like That" and "Anything," with its unexpectedly hip sampling of Toto's "Africa," make for gleefully enjoyable guilty pleasures. Coming off as a kind of urbanized Jennifer Aniston with the chops of Beyoncé, Jojo is an assured and likeable performer who can somehow embody the yin-yang persona of a suburban cheerleader slinging hip-hop attitude, as she does in the video for the ridiculously overwrought and utterly addictive lead-off single, "Too Little Too Late." It also helps that she's matured just enough so that her somewhat sexy persona makes a bit more sense now than it did in 2004, and she easily sells the cheeky and raw dance-funk of such tracks as "This Time" and "The Way You Do Me." However, it's the blissfully melodic ballads and mid-tempo anthems that make the biggest impression here.
These are well-written, catchy pop songs with a healthy dose of hip-hop rhythm that serve as solid launching pads for Jojo's superb vocal abilities. What may be a surprise is that it is really, really good. Featuring production and songs by such in demand hitmakers as Swizz Beatz, Soulshock, and Scott Storch - the man who made Paris Hilton sound good - it should come as little surprise that The High Road is a commercially oriented, radio-friendly contemporary pop-R&B album. To say that the release of her 2006 sophomore effort, The High Road, finds Jojo on the cusp of superstardom is a bit of an understatement. Released when she was just 13 years old, vocalist Jojo's 2004 eponymous debut was a bona fide hit album and garnered the young pop star a legion of equally youthful fans, as well as lead roles in two films, including the 2006 comedy RV alongside Robin Williams.
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