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JoJo Claims ‘Bad Contract’ Meant She Couldn’t Release Music, ‘Didn’t Legally Own’ Her Own Voice: Watch

After the release of her EP III (pronounced “tringle”) this summer, JoJo is ready to blow up the music industry once again. The “Leave (Get Out)” singer dropped by HuffPost Live on Tuesday, January 26, and opened up about her 10-year struggle with her former record label.

Related: JoJo Dreams Up the Ultimate Early-2000s Girl Group: See Which Pop Stars Made the Cut!

“I legally didn’t own my own voice, which is just so weird to think about!” the Massachusetts native, who found fame as a child, said about her experience with Blackground Entertainment and its imprint Da Family Records. “My mom was managing me, and we’re from a small town in Massachusetts, she was cleaning houses before she was managing me, so we didn’t know what we were getting into.” The 25-year-old singer signed her contract when she was just 12 and filed a lawsuit in 2013 arguing that minors can’t sign contracts that last more than seven years.

“I was stuck in a situation where I felt like my hands were tied, and they were,” said the artist (née Joanna Levesque).

JoJo
JoJo visits HuffPost Live.

Despite the singer’s legal battle, JoJo was still able to release two mixtapes. “That’s what I want to continue to do, release content quite regularly,” she revealed. “What is the difference between an EP, an album, a mixtape? It’s all music, we are all consuming it.” In January 2014, JoJo announced that she had signed a deal with Atlantic Records shortly after being released from her contract with Blackground Entertainment.

Related: Singer JoJo's Father Dies at 60, Read Her Touching Tribute

With her new song “Save My Soul,” JoJo exposed a different side of her life that many of her longtime fans had not seen before. The singer revealed that the tune is about living with different kinds of addiction and feeling powerless: “As I lived with the song more, I started really thinking the lyrics and what they meant to me, and thinking about my childhood and seeing both my parents struggle with addiction and me having my own personal struggles with addiction in different forms.”

JoJo noted, “In this album, it’s really important that my identity is going to come through and my voice will be heard.”

Watch the full interview here.

Have a question you’d like to ask a celebrity? Check out who will be appearing on HuffPost Live and submit your question to be asked live on-air!

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