Janae Rockwell

Beyoncé is my idol and I'm always watching her perform and she whips her hair a lot on stage and so I said this will be a great song idea.

RJ here, we are hanging out at the studio with Janelle.

Well. So we've had tons of music artists, athletes, actors, music producers. Our first songwriter.

with my hair.

brains behind the song. So take us through it. How does the whole whip my hair like idea even even come to you?

Well, Beyoncé is my idol and I'm always watching her perform and she whips her hair a lot on stage and so I said this will be a great song idea. I would see all these girls half dressed and and so, you know, the idea behind it is to take the focus off of being sexual and um, the attention of of the men.

And and how did Willow Smith come into into the picture doing whip my hair?

Um, the co-writer, it has a relationship with um the Smith family.

So did you write it just in general not knowing who it was for originally or was it always sort of written for her?

It was kind of written for me.

Okay.

As a artist, but um, you know, it got into her hands and I think that she did an amazing job. I wouldn't have asked for anybody else.

So tell me the process. Like when you were writing that song, was it pen and paper, was it on a BlackBerry, was it on a phone?

I always write on paper.

Still pen and paper, you're still old school like that.

Yeah. You know, even when you write it's emotion. So when you're writing, you know, you put capital letters or you know, you're shaking because you're angry, but you can see it on the ink with the ink. It's I'm attached to it.

So let's talk about Janelle the artist now. We've been talking about Janelle the songwriter. Okay. You're you're going to make the transition. You're you're working on it right now.

Yes.

Is it harder, is it more pressured? Do you think being the artist side is easier?

I think it's easier to me because, you know, you know what you want and you're not guessing like, well, you know, another artist like this. If I'm writing for, you know, Britney Spears, you know, will she like this idea, they're going to take it or whatever. But with um with being an artist you just have more control of um, you know, the sound that you want to put out there, the message that you want to put out there, and, you know, your voice.

A lot of people out there like, you know, you sort of know how to be an artist. If you go on YouTube, do a video, you put a demo reel out. What's the process if you want to write? Like how does one get discovered if I want to become a songwriter? Where do I even begin? What do I do?

That's a very good question and um my opinion, I would say, well, depending on your style of writing. Some people they they just do lyrics, some people just do melodies. But I would say like, I think the best route is YouTube, personally.

You know, one of the other really interesting things, I mean, you still go to school every day. You have the biggest song in the world and you go to school. What's that all about?

Um yeah, during the daytime, I volunteer at Jordan High School in Watts and um I help Fred Martin with the Urban Entertainment Institute. I help them and just, you know, getting the kids out of their shell and and you know, being a role model for them.

And do the kids realize what you've created?

They realize, you know, the song and everything, but it's I have relationships with all these kids. They look up to me and that's what is is important to me about my, you know beyond all of this, you know, if I could do one thing, it would be helping people.