sister and Johnny, as well who interacted later on to make sure that things were ok. The challenge for me was being on the road with older people. They were all older than me and I was a baby on the road. I had to be out there, but I have to honestly say I wasn’t shy. I was shy, but when I hit the stage it went away. I knew it was instilled in me by my dad. I knew what to do. I had my uncle, Avon Long, from Bubbling Brown Sugar, his name is legendary and my dad was making sure that I was loving what I was doing. He made sure that I was heard. He ran around for me and was making sure people was hearing what his daughter had, so you have this help and this professionalism being on the road had to come out of me sooner or later, so I just kept it going. I think it was the basically the challenge of being out there on the road and dealing with certain things, but at the same time, you have to have someone who is going to have your back. It can be family or it could not be family, because you can sometimes have family on the road and they don’t understand what’s going on. We had to learn this together. I enjoy every moment of having somebody who is going to protect you, as well as your business.
Fuzionz: Johnny, what have been some of your challenges in the music industry?
Johnny: First of all, growing up in the shadow that has been cast of Evelyn “Champagne” King. It’s difficult because you have find your own identity first of all and fortunately the shadow that has been cast is a positive one, so your caught in it and it’s not like it’s a negative thing. One of the biggest challenges that I also have in growing in my music career is not conforming to the other musicians, their ideologies and their behaviors. I sort of ended up playing out when I had a record deal and there was a time when I started to study the bible to know more about God and become a Christian and then I looked at the contract I was in and I realized I was almost signing a deal with the devil. There was so much cloak and dagger type of behavior that I would have to agree to. I couldn’t speak about my personal life in public and when you have somebody who believes in God and I do, you can’t deal with that. It’s not like every deal is like that. I had to walk away. The challenge I have now, musically, is to just become relevant. I thank God for the opportunity that you’ve given me
Shenoba, to be interviewed. The challenge is to become relevant to enough people and make my mark, to play my music and keep on putting it out there. That’s one of my biggest challenges.
Fuzionz: You have a lot of famous hit songs like Love Come Down, I Don’t Know If It’s Right, Shame & etc. Out of all the songs, which was your favorite and did you write them?
Evelyn: I didn’t write any of them, but the main thing is I didn’t have a favorite. The reason why is because I sing them all the time. The main thing is you have to learn the lyrics. I was young singing songs and my parents would ask, “Why are you giving my daughter such songs? She’s too young to be singing that.” They became hits. Something someone else could identify with. I appreciate when I travel. I hear everyone has a different song, everywhere I go, that they love. It’s amazing for an artist to know the catalog of songs they have, that they can really say they have a favorite, so it’s really hard for me to say. I really don’t have one. I love what I do. I love it.
Fuzionz: Johnny, can you elaborate on your debut album?
Johnny: All About Me is a labor of love album that I undertook. In 2010, I started writing it and compiling some other music that I had from years ago and I felt it would be appropriate to be compiled together and I kind of tell a story which is my story. Not that it’s a part of my biographical because it’s not. It’s a story told from my perspective and I wrote, performed and sang on the album, so there’s no other human being on the album. I engineered most of the album. The only other person that did some of the production is a guy Gil Bonikan, who mixed for Mint Condition. I started off with him but, for me, I’m an up and coming artist and I decided that I would mix it myself and so I kind of finished mixing the album. All About Me is pretty much a walk-through of some of the emotional things that either come across my mind or things that I personally experienced. It’s called All About Me not because it’s about me but everything in the world helps to make me, me, the person that I am. Everything that is done on the album is presented by me, so it’s an exact representation of what I want to