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New chart sensation Jessie J doesn’t care if people love her or hate her. Beating serious health problems and bullies have left her ready to take on the world

 By Selenator

‘I was in Stoke In Trent and there was literally one restaurant, an Italian, so I had a margarita pizza and a coke,” laughs Jessie J of the ‘wild’ celebrations for her recent number one single, ‘Price Tag’.  “I’m on a regional tour, so I’ve not got time to celebrate. I’m celebrating with hard work – that’s how we do it,” she exclaims with another grin. “I’m not a drinker either; a glass of wine now and then is OK, but that’s about it.”

The rock you’ve been hidden under would have had to be humongous and very well soundproofed for you to not have heard about 2011’s biggest pop story, Jessie J. 

She topped the BRIT’s Critic’s Choice Award, the BBC’s Sound For 2011 Poll and was also heavily featured in lists from HMV, MTV and every broadsheet and music mag going. In January, her single ‘Do It Like A Dude’ went to number two. And in the first week of February, ‘Price Tag’, featuring the rapper B.o.B, hit number one. In an attempt to combat piracy, the song was made available to buy digitally on the same day it went to radio. Becoming the first track to top the charts in this manner, ‘Price Tag’ marks an altogether different approach for the music industry in the future. 

“Am I the first to do that? I don’t know,” says the non-plussed singer on the phone from Manchester, where she’s midway through a UK tour. “It feels like the fun is back in the charts; you don’t know what’s going to happen now. It initially went in at number 247 and two days later it was number one,” she says of the single’s heady success. 

“I’ve worked really hard and I’ve been around for a while, so everything I’ve achieved, it’s been far from overnight.” 

She might be selling out venues across the country, but it’s been a six-year slog for the singer, including a stint in a girl group, Soul Deep, and a deal with a label, Gut Records, that went bust. “I’ve been through some hard times, but now I know every artist has to go through that to be the artist they become.”

Born Jessica Ellen Cornish to a social worker dad and nursery school teacher mum, the 22-year-old is the youngest of three daughters (the sisters once had a group called – wait for it – the Cornish Pasties). Always an outgoing kid, it wasn’t long before she found her way to the stage. “I was just loud since the age of eight – they didn’t let me into the school production of Annie because I was too loud,” she admits. “I was too loud and now I’m the ‘Sound of 2011’ – how funny is that?” She eventually found her way south to Croydon’s BRIT School, whose alumni include Amy Winehouse, Kate Nash and Jessie’s classmate, Adele. “We used to hang out at lunchtimes sometimes and have a little jam. I haven’t seen her for years though,” says Jessie of the ‘Rolling In The Deep’ singer.  

“Amy and Adele and so many other female UK artists have set the standards so high; they’ve really pushed boundaries in America so it gave me the hope that it could maybe happen for me too, maybe, one day.”

After her failed deal with Gut, she signed a songwriting deal with Sony, wrote a number one hit for Miley Cyrus called ‘Party In The USA’ (“That changed my life; it put me on the map”) and popped to the US to sign a record deal with Universal Republic. During that time she also wrote and toured with Chris Brown, performed ‘Girls Just Wanna Have Fun’ with Cyndi Lauper (“It was amazing though I actually sang the wrong verse, but she went along with it thank God”), before returning home to sign to Universal Island. 

During this time, Jessie steadily built an online fanbase, or “army” as she jokingly calls her fans, by filming herself singing her own songs. “I was really inspired by Lauryn Hill’s The Miseducation… album,” she says of her beginnings of pop penmanship. Her first ever song, ‘Big White Room’, will be featured on her debut album, Who You Are. “I wrote it when I was just 17,” she remembers of the track. 

“It’s about when I was 11, I was in Great Ormond St Hospital, opposite this little boy. I remember waking up in the night and hearing him pray; he was on his knees with all these wires hanging out. He passed away the next day and I remember asking my mum why God didn’t save him,” she says, quite matter of fact. 

“It really stuck with me and it still does; every day really. Every time I sing it, I dedicate it to him in my head, or anyone that goes through serious hard emotional stuff that we have to deal with in life.” Having suffered health problems as a teenager – including a minor stroke at 18 – Jessie has also dedicated a track, ‘Who’s Laughing Now’, to the kids who bullied her back then. 

“It wasn’t easy for me at school; I was called ‘alien’ because I had a heart problem so I had these beta-blockers that actually turned my skin a light shade of green,” she recalls. 

“It’s kinda funny now but at the time it was horrific. Those same people now holla at me on Facebook saying, ‘We should hang out’. 

“I’m like, ‘Didn’t you used to throw stones at me while I was walking home?’ Just ’cos I’ve become successful in what I do doesn’t mean it rewrites the future, or the past.”

Talented, yes, but there’s more than hit songs and a mega-huge vocal that makes Jessie  such a refreshing proposition for pop music this year. She’s funny, loud and opinionated while managing to avoid pretty much every branch as she whizzed past the ugly tree. 

Touching six feet tall (more in the sky-scraping heels she favours), she does her own hair and make-up and styles herself, she says, just like “any Essex chick with a Mystic Meg hairdo”. 

Like those she’s been compared to (Gaga, Rihanna), Jessie J is 3D pop at its best – she packs serious personality. “I don’t want me or my music to come and go, I want to take risks,” she points out. “Girls in pop are often very polished and pretty and they don’t say what everyone’s thinking. I feel like I’m exposing a bit of realness – straight-up realness.” 

With number one singles, magazine covers, potential success in the US and celebrity fans including Justin Timberlake who called her “one of the best singers in the world” – “I was like, ‘Yeah, wicked, pressure.com!’” – Jessie is keen to point out there’s more to her music than hit records and nice hair. 

“I want to make a difference in this life, through music. My heart breaks every time I walk past a homeless person; there shouldn’t be homelessness in this country. I’ve always wanted to be successful to make a difference, I want to make money to help people.” 

As well as planning to put on an open-mic night in London to raise cash, Jessie has created a charity, Stand Up, and the Be True To Who You Are scheme, which are intended to empower young women and girls. 

“One thing I wanted to make sure of with my music was that people would feel like they could take over the world too.”

She also has high hopes for her career in music – “I aspire to be an incredible genius like Beyoncé with the longevity of a Prince.” 

The self-confessed OCD and feng shui fanatic hopes Who You Are will help her realise these goals. “I’m all about singing and it’s one of those things I think people liked when they first saw me on YouTube, before the singles and the all the polls. There were no gimmicks; it was just me, in my pyjamas, no make-up. Some people are offended, some people love it, others hate it,” she says of splitting opinion. “That’s what I love; I want to be Marmite.”