Ciara at her hotel suite after she appeared on “Late Show With David Letterman.” While her classmates were busy fretting about boys, zits and trips to the mall, the 14-year-old Ciara Princess Harris was preoccupied with something more intangible, mapping out her music career.The first goal was to get a deal with a major recording company; the second was to sell three to five million records; and the third one was to have longevity,” the R & B singer, now known as Ciara, recalled last week. “I guess I’ve already done the first two.”
Her 2004 debut, “Goodies,” a fun-loving R&B album made for clubs and skate rinks alike, sold nearly five million copies worldwide, largely on the strength of the title track, a girl-power anthem promoting, of all things in these sexually charged times, abstinence.
“If you’re looking for the goodies/Keep on looking, ’cause they stay in the jar,” she sang. The kiss-off lyrics laid over an addictive beat proved a winning combination; the song raced to the top of the Billboard chart and quickly established Ciara (pronounced Sierra) as a singer to watch. Those betting that she was little more than a one-hit wonder were proved wrong with her chart-topping follow-ups “One, Two Step” (featuring Missy Elliott) and “Oh” (featuring Ludacris).
The R&B singer Ciara on “The Late Late Show With Craig Ferguson.”
And with her latest effort, “The Evolution,” which was released yesterday, Ciara, now 21, has added yet another goal to her list. “I want to do triple what I did last time,” she said in her suite at the Trump tower and hotel overlooking Central Park. “Triple numbers, triple popularity, triple everything.” You could excuse her unbridled performance on the “Late Show With David Letterman,” a sultry, hip-swaying number that left many in the audience panting.
For a person functioning on less than five hours of sleep, Ciara was wide-eyed and chatty, discussing everything from her favorite fashion designers to adages that she lives by (“teamwork makes a dream work”). Both her physical and sartorial evolution were readily apparent. Gone were the baggy jeans, sneakers and midriff-baring T-shirts she used to favor. That evening she wore curve-hugging jeans, bejeweled Prada platform pumps and a cropped leather bomber jacket. Her hair, once strawberry blond, was dyed a shimmering black, and she has dropped nearly 15 pounds (by limiting carbohydrates, working out and drinking water, she said).
She has evolved musically as well. While “Goodies” was the stuff of slumber parties, “Evolution” is made for more adult sleepovers. The album’s first single, “Promise,” a breathy, Prince-inspired ballad, should come with a condom and a cigarette. She no longer appears as concerned with keeping her goodies in a jar.
Lil Jon, who produced two tracks on “Goodies,” said he had definitely noticed a change in her. “She was such a little kid on the first album, but now she’s a lot more outspoken,” he said. “Sometimes people will come to you, and they don’t know what they want to do; they just want a hit record. She knew exactly what she wanted for this album and was very in control of her music.”
Ciara, who helped write and produce nearly all of the tracks on her album, said her stable of star-making producers (Pharrell of the Neptunes, Dallas Austin, Rodney Jerkins and will.i.am of the Black Eyed Peas) didn’t mind her input — not that she would have kept quiet, even if they did.
“I think they know that I’ve got my own ideas,” she said with a girlish giggle that belied an unshakable drive. “Only you determine your destiny. Nobody else will get you where you’ve got to go, so there’s no way I can put my career in someone else’s hands and let it slip away.”
It was her decision to start this project with the slow jam “Promise” — a surprise, given that she is better known for her high-energy dance tracks and the videos that accompany them than for her pipes.
“The easy route is to start off with another dance record,” said Barry Weiss, chief executive and president of her current label, Zomba Records. “ ‘Promise’ shows that’s she’s not just the dance girl. It’s a career enhancer.”
Growing upthe only child of military parents (her father was in the Army, her mother in the Air Force), Ciara seldom stayed in one place for long. By the time she was an adolescent, she had lived across the United States and Germany. Buddies came as easily as they went.
“I would build these friendships, and it would be challenging to end them,” she said. “I would cry, but eventually I would have to get over it because I’d be in the next state. Can’t go back.”
All the moving about taught her to adapt quickly to new places and new surroundings. She was popular in high school — cheerleader, track star, perennial prom date — but she had her sights set on the music industry. “I always sang in the mirror and in the shower,” she said. “I knew I had something, but I was always a little shy about it.”
She formed an R&B girl group, Hear Say, which disbanded after six months. L. A. Reid, then based in Atlanta, eventually signed her to his LaFace Records, which eventually became part of Zomba. She has been the called “the first lady of crunk &B,” a title she is all too willing to relinquish. “I don’t want to be limited,” she said. She is also often likened to Janet Jackson and the R & B singer Aaliyah, who died in a plane crash in 2001, a comparison she appreciates but also seems reluctant to embrace.
“Because of all the comparisons, it’s even more of a motivation for me to become my own person,” she said. She paused, then flashed a picture-perfect grin. “I wouldn’t mind Janet’s success, though,” she said.
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