-- by Shaheem Reid, with additional reporting by Minya Oh and SuChin Pak
When most girls her age were fantasizing about emulating heroine cartoon characters like crime-fighting singers Jem and the Holograms and that old booty-kicker She-Ra, Vivian Green was evolving into a child prodigy.
"I started when I was 11, and by the time I was 13, I think it was good," the 23-year-old, who started singing when she was five, said of her song-penning. "I felt confident in my writing at that time and that's when I realized that I wanted to do it professionally. I guess most little girls don't have that talent, but I was so moved by music nothing made me happier than doing that. When I was 13, I was writing a lot of deep stuff, believe it or not."
A couple of years later, Green would have to tone her writing down after auditioning for Boyz II Men's Michael McCary. She got indoctrinated into his production camp and was enlisted to pen tunes for fellow youngsters like Nicole Renee and Britney Spears, who was definitely not yet a woman.
"She was 13," Green, who hasn't seen Spears since then, remembered. "It was awesome. She was so sweet. She was so determined. [I wrote] something suitable for a 13 year-old girl to say. They were cute songs. I wrote a lot of pop [songs for people] back then."
Green gained the most exposure, though, crooning other people's tunes.
"I used to sing in these big bands when I was about 17, 18, 19," said Green, who was introduced to jazz at an early age by her mother. "I had to sing all these jazz standards and all these top 40 songs. All this stuff a normal [teenager] wouldn't know. The bandleaders were always impressed."
V.G. also wowed fellow Philly soulster Jill Scott. After opening up for Scott at one of the promotional parties for 2000's Who Is Jill Scott? Words and Sounds Vol. 1 LP, she was asked to hit the road as a backup singer.
"I totally did not intend to stay for the year-and-a-half I did," Green insisted. "They kept calling me and it kept happening and I thought, 'OK, why not stay, then? If this is gonna grow into something amazing, I wanna be there to see her grow. I wanna see her bloom as an artist.'"
Mission accomplished. Green was able to ride by Scott's side as she blew up, but her time on tour was cut short after music execs started to check for her in the summer of 2001. While in Amsterdam, she was summoned home by her manager to meet with labels that wanted to woo her. By November of last year, the ink was dry on a contract with Sony.
Like Scott, Green says she wanted to not only display her soulful singing, but bare some of her soul on her recently released debut, A Love Story. Green went back to her childhood and decided to write more of those deep songs.
"My mission with the album was to tell a story of loves that I had, a lost love, a new love and just loving myself," explained Green, who had her LP produced by beatsmiths on the rise, the Access Music Group. "I want someone to be moved by my story because I think we all go through the same things in everyday life and in our relationships."
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