J.Poww Interview: Past, Present, and Future of UNV

U.N.V. or Universal Nubian Voices came out in 1993 with strong harmonies and smooth love songs. The group scored hits with their singles "Something's Goin On," "Straight From My Heart," and "So In Love With You." Despite touring with Madonna and performing in front of 100,000 plus crowds and scoring two successful albums, the group seemed to disappear from the industry.

That's all changing today though. U.N.V. is back in action, having reunited in 2008 with a new album Timeless, and group member J.Poww has recorded a solo album set for release this Valentine's Day. The guys are looking to bring back the "Feel Good Love Songs" as J.Poww describes on his album and the market seems ready to embrace this classic sound.

J. Poww recently sat down with R&B Haven for a two-part interview about the business side of R&B, his solo work, and a look at the group U.N.V. In this first part of the interview, J.Poww answers the question of what happened to U.N.V. in 1995 and what the new album sounds like. And if you read closely enough, you can find the answer to the ever present question "Is Madonna really as much of a sex fiend as she depicts herself?" If you want to hear some of J.Poww's solo work or buy either the new U.N.V. Timeless album, or J.Poww's solo Headliner album, check out J.Poww's Myspace.

Interview with J.Poww of U.N.V.

This is Matt Fyffe, R&B Guru of RNBHaven.com. With me today is J.Poww of the group UNV. As part of UNV, J.Poww scored hits with tracks like "Something's Goin On" and "Straight from My Heart." UNV recently reunited and released a third album together, Timeless, and what's more, J.Poww has his own solo album, The Headliner, coming out THIS Valentines Day.

J.Poww my man, it's great to have you here.

Good to be here man, it's good to be here.

I thought we would turn the clock back a little bit and go into a history lesson here. When you were with the group UNV, how did the group come about? How did you guys form?

I actually started UNV when I was in 12th grade in high school and Shawn in the group, who's my brother had a group when he was in college called 2NV. And I always liked that name but I thought, well he's in college, I'm here, I'm gonna name my group UNV and just see what happens. And when I went to college, I kept the group going, and I kept it UNV and his group then phased out. And when I started gaining some popularity from doing a lot of shows, I called him and asked him, "You know look man. I got this group thing that's going. It's making some serious moves and I think it would be great if you'd be a part of the group." So he became a part of the group, a buddy of mine that I went to college with became a part of the group, and another guy from our home town of Lansing became a part of the group. That's how the group was basically formed.

We did Natalie Cole's show that was kinda like StarSearch. That got us going, doing what we had to do to make it happen.

I was almost calling it UNV like you envy me.

Now the group goes by both names UNV and Universal Nubian Voices. So did you guys come up with the full name first or the acronym first?

I actually came up with the acronym first. I mean I wasn't really into the whole naming thing as of yet because at that time I was younger and was like you know what, I just want a cool little name that is catchy and I was almost calling it UNV like you envy me. It just worked out that my brother actually gave it the name Universal Nubian Voices.

When you look at the big hits from the group, you've got "Something's Goin On," "Straight From My Heart," "So In Love With You," they're all ballads. But when you listen to the albums, you've got the ballads and the uptempo jams. So how come there weren't really any big up-tempo singles or why wasn't the album just straight up ballads?

If you listen to both albums, all that up-tempo stuff, I rapped on. And a lot of times, with Maverick, they went with the formula that, if it's not broke, don't fix it. Primarily we are balladeers. That's what we do. We were a group that had four members that all sang lead. So they wanted to capitalize on the success of "Something's Goin On." I didn't necessarily agree with them wanting to release a ballad, ballad, ballad and wanted to actually go after producers who did even hotter up-tempo stuff but that wasn't a priority for them. And being on a major, sometimes you don't always have the say that you'd like to be able to do what you do.

That's why on the Headliner album, I'm able to mix and mesh and do the kind of things that I want to do, and give my audience a taste of what we can do. And I wouldn't say their up-tempo, I'd say their more mid-tempo. We don't really do a lot of up-tempos anymore. But good mid-tempos, you know hot club joints. I got a joint on the Headliner album called "Get It Poppin," it's featuring a guy that just got signed to Universal here, a young guy named D-Rick, it's bangin. So on the majors you can't always have that say. So now that I have that say, I can do what I wanna do and not be caught up.

Before even getting a deal, U.N.V. released the single "Something's Goin On" to tremendous success, catching the eyes of many labels.

Even though you were on Maverick, it sounds like you did a lot of the writing for the album?

Yea, I did probably 90% of the writing on the record. It was more so I did the writing and the group would be instrumental in the vocal arrangement. On the second album, I didn't write as much. I wrote probably 50% of the album because Maverick wanted us to get with some big name producers and that's why we got the David Fosters and the Brian McKnights and the R Kellys. But like I said, if it's not broke you don't fix it and we fought that because we wanted to do our own album still. That's one of the reasons we ended up leaving Maverick because creatively, we couldn't see eye to eye.

Our second album, nobody would even know it but it went gold, basically with little to no promotion. I mean they promoted the hell out of "So In Love With You" but that really shouldn't have been our first single. That was more of a crossover pop song, that wasn't our choice. Even though we liked the song, it just wasn't our choice to be the first single. So you had to do what you had to do. That's what happens when you're on a major and you don't have the control you think you should.

So with the first album, the group was very much involved in the whole creative process?

I basically wrote the whole album. This is because Maverick was giving us the autonomy to do what we had to do because of the success of "Something's Goin On." We sold almost 14,000 units of "Something's Goin On" single independently before we even had a deal.

It's funny you did it better when it was all just you guys putting it together than with the second album where you had all the big names joining in.

Yea, I'd say our first album, overall sales-wise, did better than the second one, and we wrote it. So there's no rhyme or reason on how these majors think. When you get a 50-year old guy who's telling you how to cater to your audience, how can you ever win.