Singer Provides Her Own Backup

Nikisha Grier is a typical teen in many respects. The 18-year-old likes to shop and hang out with her friends but doesn’t like studying much, even though she pulls down good grades.

On the other hand, she’s the only one in her John F. Kennedy High School class who has sung behind Barbra Streisand, Michael Jackson and Jon Secada and hobnobbed with the president of the United States.

This high-school senior has one more thing few of her peers have: a major-label recording contract.

“There are people twice her age, who have been in the business for years, who haven’t achieved that,” said Ron Hoshi, her music teacher at Kennedy.

Grier takes her achievements in stride, having spent most of her life preparing for a career in the music industry.

“I’ve been singing since I was 2,” she said. “It really is all I’ve ever wanted to do. I’m very fortunate that God has blessed me with a voice. But I’ve had to add the hard work and dedication. Talent is God-given, but in this business you have to have talent and dedication.”

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That means work, and lots of it, to balance school and a budding career, but Grier doesn’t mind.

“I have to stay focused if this what I want to do, and it is,” she said. “On a school night, I might be in the music studio until 2:30 a.m. and go home and sleep until 6:30 a.m. and get up and go to school all day.

“Sometimes, on the weekends, when my friends are out doing fun things, I’m working on my music,” she said. “But it’s OK because I know that it will all pay off in the future.”

It’s paying off in the present. Grier landed a solo recording contract with the Robbins Entertainment label, a New York-based dance-pop subsidiary of international giant BMG Records. The label was started about 18 months ago by Cory Robbins, formerly co-owner of Profile Records, the home of Run DMC and other rap and dance acts. Grier is working on her debut album (no release date has been set).

“I think the music on the album will be quite a mix,” she said, adding that she will have a choice in the content. “It will have some pop, R&B;, hip-hop, jazz and soul.

“I just love soul music. Ever since I was young, my parents have had cases of great music at home. I’ve always loved to listen to singers like Aretha Franklin and other soul singers who know what they are singing about.”

Grier said that translates to music that makes her feel what the artist is singing about; she wants to sing music that makes the audience feel something: “I don’t want to listen to something that’s just a bunch of words. I like music that has a message.”

Like Franklin and countless other R&B; singers before her, Grier cut her musical teeth singing in youth choir and at church--for her, Academy Cathedral in Inglewood. Her pastor and members of the congregation, along with her parents, friends, and music teachers, encouraged her early on to start working toward a career in music.

Grier started singing in public every chance she got and, when she was 12, lined up her own producer, who got her gigs singing backup for well-known musicians.

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Fred Grier said that having a producer has allowed his daughter to “stretch her natural ability and push it to another level. For her to become a major recording artist, she has to have a producer.”

Nikisha Grier said the ball really got rolling a couple of years ago.

“I was singing in a gospel group called All God’s Children, and I got a call from my producer, Maxie Anderson, and she told me that about 12 girls were needed to sing for Barbra Streisand at a Democratic fund-raiser that Bill Clinton attended,” she said.

The event was held in Bel-Air in 1996, and, Grier said, was a highlight of her life.

“Barbra Streisand was incredible,” she said. “She was so sweet and talked to us about girl things. She asked us about school, boyfriends and music.”

(Having met Clinton, she expressed amazement at the sex scandal surrounding him. “I got to meet Clinton and shake his hand at the event,” she said. “And he was so nice. He’s a very friendly, charismatic person. It seems to me that he’s just an outgoing guy who talks to everyone and treats everyone like his friend.”)

Around the same time as that fund-raiser, Grier signed with production company Madukey, which moved this week from Corona to Los Angeles. Madukey paid about $5,000 for her to record a six-song demo tape and began shopping it to record companies.

“Nikisha really liked the producers at Madukey because they are young, and they are interested in the kind of music she sings,” Fred Grier said. “Some in the industry are not so nice, but they were humble and approachable.

“At just about every performance Nikisha has given, we’ve had producers come up and give us their cards,” he said. “But with Madukey, everything really just seemed to click, for them and for us.”

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His daughter recalls when the demo tape paid off.

“I finally got a call from [Madukey] saying that BMG Records was very interested, and we began negotiating and met with my lawyer and signed the record deal. It’s been very exciting.”

Said her father: “Anyone can go to a recording studio, pay an engineer and get a tape made. But unless that tape is marketable, you’re wasting money.”

The niece of football great Rosey Grier said her singing has been compared to Patti LaBelle’s.

“I find that very flattering, but I don’t purposely try to duplicate anyone,” she said. “My life is about being original. I don’t ever strive to be like anyone else.”

That goes for her singing style and her personal style.

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While her peers might wear whatever the hot label is, Grier makes a statement by wearing something funky or retro. On a recent day, when most everyone in her class wore jeans and T-shirts, she wore black pants and a soft, buttery jacket adorned with lots of feathers.

Parents Fred and Elaine and brothers, Eric, 27, and Jason, 15, are behind Grier all the way.

“Singing is in her blood,” Fred Grier said. “We’re just so pleased with the way she is living her life.”

Los Angeles producer Anderson, who has known Grier about 10 years, said she is “a star waiting to happen.”

“She is a total package--voice, dance and personality,” Anderson said. “But the best thing about her is that she is the same person she’s always been. She puts God first in her life and lets everything else fall into place.”