Recording artiste Janeel Mills started her musical career pouring her heart into decorating the music of more established people in the business.

Due to her stellar performances as backup vocalist on various tours and projects with artiste’s such as Romain Virgo, encouragement often came her way to kick-start a solo career of her own.

Encouragement led to action, and now Mills is out on a campaign to promote her début single, Johnny.

“I have been on a number of tours. My very first tour was in Europe and I went there with Junior Kelly and Jahbar I. After that I did a tour with roots-reggae band Earth Cry, and shortly after that I did a tour with Romain Virgo. Whether you are working or touring with any artiste it is definitely going to be a learning ground but, for me in particular, it helped me a lot with my performance styles, my audience engagement, and it also helped me to network and build relationships,” Mills told the Jamaica Observer’s Splash in a recent interview.

“I have worked on a whole lot of projects. Just to name a few, I worked on Christopher Martin’s Goodness of God single. I did some work with Agent Sasco, George Nooks, and I worked on Romain Virgo’s Gentle Man album.”

Mills’ début single is a cover song to a track done by Amy Winehouse entitled
Valerie. On this project, she said she had the pleasure of working with “a few legends in the industry” such a Dean Fraser, Robbie Lyn, Errol “Flabba” Holt, and “young legends in the making such as Rohan Johnson and producer of the single, Makiri Whyte”.

“I was so excited to know they agreed to do some work with me. Valerie is a well-known song, but my single is called Johnny. I was on tour in the United Kingdom and this song was part of my set. The song was already a hit, but what I loved was the reception I got from the crowd every single time. When I came back to Jamaica, I said to Makiri Whyte, who is the producer, that I have to record this song.

According to Mills, music has always been in her nature. She said growing up in Seaview Gardens in St Andrew she was always surrounded by music. The budding singer said she found great pleasure in listening to her grandparents and her mother experiment with their own melodies.

Those and other factors, she explained, influence how she writes and records her music.

“My journey started officially at St Andrew Technical High School (STATHS). I became a member of the school choir and the band. I somewhat got musical teachings until I branched off into the hotel industry to do singing. Then I emerged on the music scene as a professional supporting vocalist. Most of the artistes I worked with kept asking me why I don’t have any material for myself. Even though I loved music, I never saw myself upfront and centre…” Mills shared.

She admits there are some not so good aspects of the music scene but, according to her, she has been learning to ignore what she described as noise.

“Just like every industry, music has its pros and cons. I love what I do and I am so passionate about it, that I put on my blinders and ignore the noise. I have a purpose to fulfil and I believe in myself. I have people who are in my corner and they are rooting for me, so there is no turning back at this point,” she said.

The artiste says she aims to remain relevant and build a career and a catalogue that will have longevity.

“My spirit and energy [are] just my own form of uniqueness. I just want to build on the standards set before me by the great people in music,” Mills told
Splash.