The Purr-fect Doll

“Being a part of The Pussycat Dolls put me on the musical map, but being in the band was complicated. I hate to say it, but it wasn’t like we were a team. Some of us, of course, were closer than the others. Nicole and I were best friends. We were more of singer/dancers and not dancers/singers like the others,” said Jones, after the gig.

Jones, who was chosen by choreographer Robin Antin in 2003, came in when three girls had been fired. “We were walking into something that was already established. So there were bound to be issues,” says Jones. She soon realised that she was not writing any of the songs or getting paid a lot for it. “There was no creativity and there was no money. We didn’t own the brand and had no rights to it. I loved to sing so I decided to walk away,” says the 29-year-old. She left the group in 2006 and since then, has come out with her album Confessions of a Hollywood Doll.

Growing up in Canada in a half-Jamaican and half-American household that only had medical and legal practitioners, Jones was busy watching pop icons Michael Jackson and Madonna, and trying to sing and dance like them. But one style of dance moves that Jones never factored in was that of Bollywood. “I was in Canada, so weekends were about watching interesting shimmies and hip movements and learning to dance like Bollywood actors,” says Jones, who travelled through the Caribbean and got inspired by the folk music before being signed on by R ‘n’ B king and record producer, R Kelly, at 13.

“There is a story there. I actually bombarded Eminem and Dr Dre’s tour bus one time. I couldn’t get tickets to the concert and I showed up at the hotel where they were staying. So the security guards asked me where I was headed and I told them room 703, which was my house number. They knew I was bluffing but still let me in,” says Jones, who eventually did send a demo tape to Kelly, who was staying there. He later called her for an audition. “He asked me to sing a Mariah Carey or a Whitney Houston number but I sang Celine Dion’s That’s the way it is. And I may have squeezed my butt for getting those notes out but Kelly was happy,” says Jones, who is touring India to promote her upcoming dance pop album Rise of the Phoenix.

At her 30-minute concert on Friday, Jones straightaway nosedived into the upbeat Hollywood Doll, paying a homage to the past, will all the lyricism intact. She followed it by Don’t you wish your girlfriend, ending it all with a fantastic cover of Ferrish Key’s upbeat Dance all night.

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