Yasmeen has the same dream as millions of young
women from all over the world. Dreams of being in the
spotlight, performing on stage in front of thousands
of fans and, if they're lucky, inspiring other young
women to dare to dream as well.This summer, the
world got to know Yasmeen a little bit better as the pop
star in the making wowed the crowd at Magic Johnson's
"MidSummer Night's Magic" event in LA. It's only right
that Magic gave her some burn though. Especially
since she is signed to MCA by way of his music
imprint.Born in Oakland, CA, Yasmeen Sulieman grew
up in Hawaii. The title of her upcoming set is "When
Will It Be Me.""I was born in Oakland, but my family moved to Hawaii
when I was 7," said Yasmeen. "I moved back to the mainland
two years ago when I got signed. Moving to Hawaii was
definitely a culture shock. It was great though. I don't
think that I would've had as much experience performing
if I hadn't moved to Hawaii because there are so many more
things open to young people, like community theater and
things like that. It's beautiful though, an amazing place
to grow up."For some folks the only island they are familiar with
is surrounded by two stankin' rivers so we imagine the
Hawaii thang is a unique experience. But how does
someone on a tropical island go about getting
a record deal?"I came out to LA to do a showcase and the day
before the showcase I met with some people in Magic
Johnson's office. I sang for the president and I guess
he enjoyed it," said Yasmeen with a chuckle. "I guess
he enjoyed it because he called in Magic and soon after
that they offered me a record deal. That was about two
years ago. After I was signed they put me into artist
development."Artist development is not an extinct animal. It still lives
in choice environments, environments where those in charge
actually give a darn about the product they are trying to
put out."During artist development we were just finding the right
songs," Yasmeen told our reporter. "My sound is a mixture
between R&B and pop so it was hard to find the right music
and producers and we dealt with marketing concerns as
well. I believe it was definitely worth it.""Being on Mr. Johnson's label is amazing," said
Yasmeen of her business mentor. "He's a great boss,
really down to earth and just a nice, nice person.
Everything you see on TV is exactly how he is.
I love being signed to this label."Though she is influenced by the Motown sound, she
points to classical, native Hawaiian and contemporary
pop musicians as influences too. The song that will get
major blaze, we hypothesize, is the pop-tinted "Blue
Jeans." But don't think that's the creme-de-la-creme
of the album. There are other tracks that showcase
Ms. Sulieman's full vocal abilities, which aren't bad.
In fact, they are pretty darn good.
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