Меджа

Meja is one of Sweden’s best selling artists, worldwide.
 
1992 – 1997
She started in 1992, when she founded and co-wrote the music for the dance project "Legacy of Sound" together with Anders Bagge (who later went on to produce and write for Celine Dion, Jennifer Lopez, Janet Jackson etc). “Legacy of Sound” eased their dance floor hit "Happy" in 1993, and had their first American hit.
 
But in 1994 Meja decided she wanted to stand on her own feet. She teamed up with Swedish manager Lasse Karlsson and writer/producer Douglas Carr. Together they created what was to be Meja’s first solo album titled "Meja", eased in 1996. Almost overnight, Meja found a new musical home in Japan, where “Meja” had enormous success, selling almost 1 million albums and winning all sorts of Awards, such as "Best Selling Female Artist of the Year", "Best Pop Album" etc.
 
1998 – 1999
Meja called her second ‘baby’ "Seven Sisters", which was eased in 1998, the album name being inspired by the star cluster The Pleiades, the same stars that have inspired artists for thousands of years. Now the doors to Europe opened and you could hear her big radio hit "All about the Money" playing on every radio station around the World.
 


 
In the Spring of 1999 Meja connected with Ricky Martin and together they sang the duet "Private Emotion" on Ricky’s album. After shooting the video for “Private Emotion” in Los Angeles with director Francis Lawrence, Meja stayed on to co-write with Billy Steinberg (legendary writer for Madonna, Pretenders and Celine Dion amongst others), Marti Frederiksen (The Cult, Ozzy Osborne, Aerosmith ), KC Porter and Maia Sharp. These songs became part of her third album, a story named “Realitales”. "The world in-between what we think is Reality and what we believe is a Fairytale" is the content of this album, says Meja. "I have always been fascinated by dreams, day dreams and night dreams, and always wondering what makes them often so real, when sometimes life feels like a dream".
 
2000 – 2002
After the ease of “Realitales” Meja took some time off to reflect on and re-connect to life. She started thinking of the next move and the vision of the new album started to appear. In 2002 she called up her long time friend, former Sony Executive Richard Ogden for feedback. Richard & Meja started to explore the idea of a more organic, acoustic album inspired by the sort of “live” show Meja normally performs. At the famous “606 Club” in London Richard introduced Meja to his friend Hamish Stuart, founder, writer, guitarist, bass player and “the voice” of The Average White Band. Meja and Hamish started to collaborate to create an album inspired by the famous sounds of Bahia, Brazil, which Meja soon came to think of as being “Mellow”.
 
The start of Mellow
Meja and Hamish decided to record the Album as “live” and “natural” as possible and to achieve this Hamish assembled a cast of the very best musicians available in London, seriously talented musicians like Meja’s friend and former Simply Red drummer Gota, with top jazz drummer Ralph Salmins also appearing on a few tracks; like bassist Steve Pearce and keyboard player Graham Harvey. And then, to put the Brazil into the Bossa, Heitor Perreira, the world’s greatest Brazilian guitarist was invited to contribute to the six tracks that would best showcase his talents. Then the icing on the sonic cake was provided by London-based Brazilian percussionist, Bosco De Oliveira.
 
“Mellow” turned out to be a beautiful and thoughtful album that introduces yet another side of Meja, a more mature image of the woman she is. The acoustic sound and the laid-back feeling of this album gives the listener a chance to really connect to Meja’s voice and to her music. This is an album that demands time, and once you have given that you will love it forever.
 
Talented musicians
Meja says of it : “This is an album I have longed to do for many years. It’s a naked, close-up sound with my voice in the center, surrounded by musicians who make the songs glow with their talent. It holds the flavor of both jazz and boss nova, but in a Meja-pop-way”, she says. “Also the possibility of working with such a gifted man as Hamish has made me grow as an artist, in terms of my voice and how I express myself. I am truly thankful for this album. It has taken some time, but it was worth it”.
 
On “Mellow” you will find traditional Bossa Nova songs like “Agua de Beber” (sung beautifully by Meja in its original Portuguese) and “Dindi” alongside new Meja songs like the first single “Wake Up Call”, a joyful, yet thoughtful tune with a Van Morrison kind of feel. Next to that you also have Meja’s jazzy “Red Light”, and her delicate English version of the Brazilian classic “O Leãozinho” originally written and performed by the legend of Brazilian popular music, Caetano Veloso. Caetano gave his personal blessing for Meja to write the first English lyric to the song, which became “Little Lion”.
 
The importance of creativity
As a multi-faceted artist Meja is involved in the writing and production of her music, as well as writing poetry, short novels and taking photographs. "The writing is my force in life and I have come to realize......I just love it, and I have done since I wrote my first poems at the age of five”. Being brought up in a musical and artistic family the choice of her career was not a coincidence. "My mother was recording when she was younger, before deciding that she wanted to dedicate her life to art and painting, and my grandfather was a known composer and director in Sweden. Also my father has been writing his own songs since he was a young man". To Meja, the importance in life is creativity. “The longing of wanting to create and being able to encourage." “Creation is in every part of our life, we create in school, at home, at work. Basically, without creativity there would be no life what so ever........"
 
Still being the joyful artist that she is, Meja’s journey to the new album "Mellow" has not been only easy. “The best thing with going through the bad is that after rain comes sunshine. I have learned so much from just letting go and accept the way things are and trusting that all things have got their own time."
 
So, this time is Meja´s time.
 

Автор: Звезды.ру

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