The death of her close friend former Voice Mail member Oneil Edwards had a major impact on her. Now singer Alaine has released those emotions in her latest single You Are Me. The song which is produced by her 1 Thirty 1 record label shows some amount of maturity and growth in her lyrical output.

In an interview recently before she departed the island for a month-long tour of Europe with the remaining members of Voice Mail, Alaine spoke about her evolving career, her music projects and what she’s expecting from the tour.

“The tour will be for a month and we will be performing in Germany, Italy, Austria, Sweden, Switzerland, France and some other countries. I’m so excited and I’m really looking forward to it. It’s going to be awesome,” an excited Alaine related.

Since her split from producer Donovan ‘Don Corleon’ Bennett, Alaine has kept herself quite busy evolving into the production aspect of the business. She refuses to talk about the reasons for her split with Bennett whom she dated at some point.

Alaine’s passion for music and plans to work with other artistes resulted in the formation of her label. “I decided to form my own label after recording my new single You Are Me. After finishing the song I knew I wanted to present it to the world and it made sense that I should form my own label in order to do this. I have dreams of eventually working with new artistes and helping them to achieve their musical dreams and the formation of 1Thirty 1 Records is my first step towards this. Life is about taking leaps of faith and I’m leaping,” Alaine explained.

Since she exploded onto the musical radar in 2005 with the hit No Ordinary Love, Alaine has followed up with a string of ear candies which have found favour with music fans. Songs like Whine, Anything, Forever More (with Tarrus Riley), Sacrifice, Love of a Lifetime, Never Done and We Rise (in Love) have kept her on the charts and increased her fan base.

Said Alaine “My music has grown. I have expanded creatively and have really committed myself to every aspect of my music writing, producing, performing’.

Commenting on the You Are Me song for which a video directed by Ras Shac was recently released, Alaine said the recent happenings in Tivoli Gardens was also a contributing factor in the creation of the song. You Are Me is a song that came pouring out of my soul. The loss of my friend Oneil Edwards to violence as well as the recent happenings in Tivoli really devastated me. The negative images, sounds and emotions that were constantly conveyed on the television, Internet and radio coupled with gunshots all around greatly affected me and I started crying. I followed my tears to my piano and started writing and You are Me was the result. The song is a cry for healing, that I believe starts with each of us recognising that we are brothers and sisters despite social, race or class differences. I believe we have to come to a place in our collective consciousness where we realise our oneness with each other and then work to effect positive change by becoming the change we need. We have to search for solutions and I believe this is a good place to start. We need to care more for each other.

Alaine, who resided in the United States, gave up a career as an investment banker with JP Morgan Chase to pursue her musical ambitions. “It had to be music. Music is what I really wanted to do,” she commented.

To date, she has released two albums, Sacrifice (2007) and Luv a Dub (2009).

Asked what she is bringing to the musical game, Alaine said “I bring my smile, positivity and all my heart to the table. I am focused, renewed and ready for great things.”

Alaine recently collaborated with international dancehall/pop artiste Shaggy on the track For Yur Eyez Only. The track was produced by Tony Kelly. Additionally she has recorded projects for ZJ Chrome, Demarco, Esco, Arif Cooper and Jeremy Harding.