Joy Leslie

I know I said that I didn’t have one - but I actually recorded a song later on Friday night… I was at my brother’s studio and I felt like recording a little something to pass the time.  :)  This time it was Lauryn Hill’s version of “Can’t Take My Eyes Off You.”  It’s a really short song and kind of low for me, but still fun to sing.  I sang this song for the first time (live) on a cruise once.  SIDEBAR: I recommend a cruise to anyone that needs a vacation!  It’s so much fun… LOL!

OH! I have two performances coming up this week!  I saw some ads for some open mics in the city and I wrote to them, and now I have a spot!  So wish me luck guys!  I have one tomorrow night, and another on Tuesday night.  Then I have some auditions for another showcase on Wednesday night.  Nerve-wracking!!! But exciting… I’m going to sing one of the songs from the new album.  Maybe I can get some footage of it and post it for you guys…

 Okay, so here’s my cover of Lauryn Hill!

I wanted to take some time today to wish any American’s out there a Happy Thanksgiving. I hope you had as good of a day as I did, or better! I woke up, spoke to my family, spent some time checking out this stray mom cat and her kitten next door (so cute!), got ready and then went to the studio. There, I met up with my brother for lunch and then spoke to Uness for a few hours about the direction I wanted my next couple of songs to go in. It was a very cool experience to just sit down and listen to the different kinds of music that inspire me to do music. Hopefully, later today, I will speak with him some more. Then my brother dropped me off at my husband’s job… I know!!! I can’t believe he had to work that night too… but all-in-all, I actually had a fun night. I met some really nice people there (some of which were away from their families too) and I didn’t get home until nearly 3am! It was a fun night. So I hope you (whoever you may be) had a great night too!

OKAY - so down to some more business stuff. I’m having a hard time these days with anxiety. I don’t know where it all came from, but I was looking online for some shows that I could do and all of a sudden I started to feel really nervous about the whole thing. I mean - am I really read to do this? To completely put myself on blast for everyone to see? Am I going to be able to take the talk? the criticism? the good and the bad? Do I feel like I’m going to go out there with my best foot forward? I think I feel so nervous because I’m not as prepared as I should be at this point. I have to be honest - I’ve been really slow-moving with it. I think I’m stagnant because I don’t always know what the next best move is… but since I haven’t figured it out, I haven’t made much progress as a result. Soooooo it kind of sucks. Actually right now, I kind of suck. It’s totally an attitude thing and I need a major adjustment. I just don’t know how to kick my own butt into gear, you know? I have random ideas, but for some reason, I fear failure so much that I don’t even try them out. My brother said something to me yesterday that made a lot of sense. He said, “Joy, you won’t fail… You’re going to get back exactly what you put into this. So even now, you’ve been 100% successful at getting the results you’ve worked for.. and that will continue,” AND HE’S SO RIGHT! Which is the frustrating thing…. *sigh* Thoughts/coversations like this in my head make me feel like I’m either going off the deep-end or I’m having some major PMS symptoms. LOL! I know!!! I kind of feel like a wreck and I just want to pull myself out of it! Maybe I feel worse and worse because I’m not putting in as much as I know I should. Maybe this is all guilt… or maybe, I just need to stop talking about it and just do something already!!!

It’s a new day, you guys! I just gotta do something with it now…
In the meantime… Since I’ll be working on some other stuff - I don’t have a video ready… so I want to leave a friend-tribute. My friends are so awesome… I miss them all.

Two of my best friends, Natalia and Olivia

Surrounded by some lovely Latinas!!! Gloria aka Glow-yuh, Katita aka “Soul sista”, MOH Natalia, and other bff, Oliva

Evonne, my other best friend and my little girl scout.. and Christina. So much fun!!!

WOW bringing it back!!! With hubby, bff Olivia and her hubby Larry, my “summer sister” LuzElena and her hubby Mike

Don’t get to talk to her much, but I really love her to death.. This is my girl, Naddia.

THIS is really why I wanted to go back to school. You can only have this kind of fun with some cool college friends…

USC had some great people… my sister (forreals!) Kari, Rexanne, JC (aka I love Jesus), and confidante and little light, Amy

My friends are so great. Too bad I’m so far away from all of them!!!! LOL I love them.

Alright, so I messed up. I shouldn’t have posted all those wedding pics on my facebook because someone totally took them and now they’re on ybf.com. They’re going to be taken down I think… they’re already down on my facebook. And now, if you’re not my facebook friend, you can’t see them. I hate having to do that. However, I also see now that such precautions are necessary… since some people look for things to use to hurt others and they’ll manipulate my good intentions to do that. Sooo yeah. Lesson learned. The only stuff that’s going up is stuff that I don’t mind getting put up and that I know will not affect other people’s careers.

In other news.. Uness is back in town!!! Hooray! I think we may start working on some music together. Super cool guy… I really need to get on the ball. I still have NO IDEA what I’m doing. It’s been a few months, you know? So I’m thinking I’m going to start trying to do some shows. I need to get my face out there. I’m too timid with this music thing. I was talking to a guy and my husband last night at a restaurant and they were both saying that I act too humble. No one will notice me if I don’t make some sort of stink about myself.. that’s just not really how I am, so I’m literally forced to fight NATURE when I talk about me. I never thought I’d say this, but I think I need a bigger ego. LOL!!!

I woke up REALLY late today. My husband went to work this morning, only to come back when he realized that he didn’t have to be there until this evening. So stupid us, we went back to sleep and didn’t wake up until 3:15 in the afternoon!!! So my whole day is shot. Then, on top of that, I also learned that he’s working a DOUBLE SHIFT on Thanksgiving, so we won’t get to do anything that special together. Super bummed!!! I just need to take a few deep breaths and try not to think about being bummed. Besides… tonight I get to see BEOWULF in IMAX 3D!!! I heard it was awesome. So I’m at least happy about that.

Okay so for my video today, since I was having such a bad day, I decided to sing a feel good song. It’s Whitney Houston’s “The Greatest Love of All” and it has always made me feel better about things when I’m feeling a little down in the dumps. So I hope you like!

LOL I was going to upload this at the studio and do some syncing with my iPhone, but I went all the way down there to find it locked with no one there!!! Sad, I know - I was wearing some really uncomfortable shoes so I pretty much was hurting by the time I got back to my house. The staff at Next Selection is like a large band of brothers. It’s a bunch of dudes and then… me. I need Mia to come back from London so it’s not such a sausage fest. LOL … Awww, one of my “brothers” is going back to England tomorrow. I feel kind of bad because I intended on seeing him before he left. He says he’s coming back though, soon… either way - Safe travels, Stevie!!!

OKAY so I finally found something to sing! It’s Natasha Bedingfield’s “Soulmate” and I just learned it. I changed it up a bit and sang it in the bathroom instead of the bedroom… the bedroom was like 54 degrees farenheit and I couldn’t put the heater on or it would mess with the sound of the video… So I decided to go to the bathroom where it was warmer. Don’t know why - just was.

Hope you like it!!!

UPDATE: Three hours after I’ve typed the above… I’ve been having the WORST time trying to upload this video! Either the page stops loading, the internet connection dies, or I accidentally refresh the page before it’s done!!! GRRRR, here I am, all this time later, STILL waiting for it to load!

FINALLY!!!

*sigh* So today I wanted to post a new blog and video for everyone… but it’s now 10:51pm and I have no idea what song to sing… STILL. I’ve been searching online for hours for a good idea for a song, or for a decent instrumental… I was looking for Bubbly by Colbie Caillat but the person that had it up on YouTube deleted it! I also looked at One Republic’s Apologize but it’s kind of not my song. I tried it, but I didn’t like how I sounded on it. Actually I didn’t like how I sounded on ANYTHING that I tried to sing today. It’s one of those days where everything you try to sing sounds bad. It’s been frustrating for me because there was a lot that I wanted to do that I didn’t get to do.

I spent the morning with my husband. We tried this new breakfast place on 116th and it was really good. When he was leaving for work at around 3ish, he said that I should do a blog today. I said okay because I needed to go to the studio afterwards and I was planning on having my day go something like this:

3:30pm get ready
4:30pm sing song for blog and upload to YouTube
5:30pm go to studio to pick up stuff, do Myspace and Facebook, and finish this blog
10:30pm come back and relax

BUT obviously, that didn’t happen. So here I am sitting down all dressed up and nowhere to go. I was still going to go to the studio up until 10pm, but now I don’t want to go out there on my own and it’s nearly 11. GRRRR so frustrating!!! I need some new instrumentals or something!!! I did promise that I would do a blog, so I’m writing in here… at least there’s THAT. So let me at least update you on what’s been going on with me:

I think I found a trainer. Jakhamah aka Chanan is offering his services to me! On Sunday we met up for a lunch meeting and I asked him about maybe training me 3 times a week to keep my weight normal and stuff. Also I was asking him about choreography, but my brother doesn’t think I need that as much because I really need stage presence more than anything. But yeah, I have a trainer! And Crystal is coming down this weekend to NY so I’ll get to see a friend this week which is also very cool. Also, one of my good friends since forever is having his anniversary soon and asked me to reprise the song I sang for him and his wife at their wedding. I gotta re-write some of the words because the video he has of it is kind of cut off, but I got the jist of it… soooo I’m going to be working on that for a new video soon, too.

GAH! I can’t get over this frustration of the fact that I got ready to sing something and I came up empty-handed!!! Tomorrow better be a better day!!! I promise - an actual video comes tomorrow.. Until then, here’s some fun pictures of me, my husband and some of my favorite people.

My husband and me - HOMIES LOL:

My parents back in the day:

My brother and I back in the day:

LOL my fourth grade graduation day!!!

Me with my hubby and some other USC friends:

The best wedding EVER!!! (LOL look at my bro on the far right):

Hey guys, I’ve been waiting on doing a new vlog mainly because I RE-CHIPPED my front tooth and I didn’t want to get on camera like that… LOL I know… but I’ve got a temporary fix and I’m making a dentist appointment soon. Until then, I just wanted to check in and let you know that I’ve been practicing for a new video - I think I want to finish up Alicia Key’s “No One” since I only sang a little bit of it before… What do you guys think? Until then… I’ll be around.

XOXO, Joy

UPDATE: Okay so I’m finished recording it!!! Hope you all like it! Here it goes…

Hey guys, not too much today, but I just wanted to come by and leave you with a few thoughts. First and foremost - thank you AGAIN to STACEY!!! She’s seriously been my biggest help with this whole online campaigning thing. Because of her help, I was the #7 most viewed musician today on YouTube!!! Here are all of the honors I got from YouTube:
#37 - Most Viewed (Today)
#7 - Most Viewed (Today) - Music
#52 - Most Viewed (This Week) - Music
#36 - Top Rated (Today) - Music
#23 - Most Discussed (Today) - Music
#5 - Most Linked (Today)
#3 - Most Linked (Today) - Music
#21 - Most Linked (This Week) - Music
That’s seriously amazing. So Stacey… thank you thank you thank you a million times over. If any of you guys want to post my video up around myspace and get my youtube views up, please do!!! I seriously need all the help I can get!

So today’s song is Whitney Houston’s “I Wanna Run To You” … this one has always been a favorite of mine to sing, so I decided to go and give it a try for you all. I got a little thing in my throat during the first verse/chorus, but after I cleared my throat it went away. Other than that - I hope you all like it!!!

Thanks again for all the support. It means the world to me. And thanks again, Stacey!

There’s a lot that has gone on since I last wrote in here! I finally got to meet my new friend, Crystal, out in the city. She’s an aspiring singer/actress from Boston. Great songwriter too. Anyways, she was in New York to audition for these guys that said they represeneted Kat de Luna and Universal Records. Then they said Sony, but the man’s card said Empire … weird. But anyways, yeah, they wanted her to sing in a showcase or something. Well, they were all really late in getting to her but we finally met up with them. Small world, they all knew my brother. Or at least OF him. They were asking me to sing for them too, but I was like, “Sorry, I’m already signed with another label.. I’m really here for my friend..” LOL it was funny getting to say that to some big music execs. So yeah, Crystal - SUPER COOL and really sweet. Loved her. Can’t wait to head out again with her. I forgot to tell you, we both have one dimple.. mirror image of each other. Funny… Oh and then that night on my way home, I walked past Brooke Shields and Lindsay Price. I was just thinking to myself as I got closer to them, “That lady REALLY looks like Brooke Shields!” LOL.. well of course she did.

So then I got to head out on a photoshoot with my brother for a campaign that he’s doing. It was really really awesome. I got to meet some really cool stylists, makeup artists, managers, a beautiful model named Irina Shaykhlislarnova (I know, try saying THAT two times fast… or even just once fast. LOL). Super nice, very cute girl. Modeled for Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issues too. Here’s a picture of her:

I know!! Gorgeous right? Well, she IS a model. AND the best part of the day? I got some of the clothes! I got some Givenchy shoes, a Kooba clutch purse and some leather studded gloves. (I don’t know the brand on those).. but SO AWESOME! My first designer anything! LOL…

AND I finally tried out a basic dance class. It wasn’t at the Broadway Dance Center. It was at another place closer to my house. It was taught by my new friend Chanan Lareche aka Jakhamah!!! I actually had a really fun time and it wasn’t because the lady at the front desk had a really cute dog. It was a smaller class, more laid back, and the people there were more at my level. So I was comfortable and not so intimidated by all the professional dancers in the room. LOL.. So had a great time. I think I’ll go back next week. He teaches step, hip hop and house dancing. I’ll finally get to experience that! Hooray!!!

Anyways, that’s all folks! I have a video for you - I’m kind of fighting off this dumb cough, so my voice is husky.. so to take it easy on the voice, here’s an Amy Winehouse for you:

That is exactly what I feel like today. Today is one of those days where I don’t feel like doing anything. Well… I DID do SOME stuff. I returned my dvds to Blockbuster, and I found some new walking shoes. That was fun. Doing laundry… not so fun. I am starting to run out of ideas for what to write about.

HALLOWEEN was last night and I totally thought my friend didn’t call me - but she DID! We were supposed to go out and I REALLY wanted to wear my costume, but … well this is actually my fault. A few days ago, I dropped my phone on the volume button, and so now, whenever something touches that button ever-so-slightly, it turns the ringer ALL the way down. So - my friend DID call me — I just missed it. And so I sat at home and watched Transformers on DVD - twice. MAN! I could have had so much fun, too! *sigh* oh well…

It’s getting colder - but not too crazy cold. It actually feels like FALL. I remember now how much I LOVE this season. It’s awesome. I think the hubby and I might do Thanksgiving on our own this year. Our very first Thanksgiving alone with ourselves. I hope we don’t build it up too much and then end up fighting. LOL!!! Does anyone else ever notice that when you try really hard to plan something nice it either goes all to crap, or it goes exactly as planned? Story of my life!

Okay - so today, I’m singing Pink’s “Who Knew” so I hope you guys like it… Took me a while to figure this one out, but I’m fairly happy with the finished product: