Fifteen years ago I was 12, and I was singing about these grown-ass things that I knew nothing about. It was really interesting going back, because now I’m a woman who’s made tons of decisions, loved and lost and fucked up. I’ve lived, so to put that into these songs was really dope. When I did “Keep On Keepin On” and thought about my 12-year-old self writing those lyrics, I cried. The idea of “Keep On Keepin On” is a message that I still need - and one that I don’t think I’m ever going to stop needing. It was almost like a little gift that my 12-year-old self gave to myself now. That message of “You gotta keep your head up high, and whatever you’re going through is going to be okay,” that was woke! I don’t know where that came from, but I was always a little weirdo. It was the same with “The High Road.” I was like, “Did I manifest this happening? What the fuck?” It’s crazy to think about the content of that song. It’s about resilience - when people go low, you go high. I guess my 15-year-old self was having a premonition about the things that I would need for the next few years. I’m an only child, and I always wanted a big sister or somebody who could teach me things or tell me about how life was going to be.
When I was re-doing these two albums, I was feeling very nurturing toward my younger self and having compassion for her, because I feel like a different person now. I felt like a big sister to myself. While Jojo may not be taking a career road less traveled, The High Road does make time for some surprising and memorable pit stops along the way.There were definitely a lot of chills, a lot of tears. Similarly, "Good Ol'" is the best summer anthem ever to see release in the fall, and "'Comin' for You" smartly borrows some of Kelly Clarkson's rock energy. Cuts such as the gorgeous and dreamy "Like That" and "Anything," with its unexpectedly hip sampling of Toto's "Africa," make for gleefully enjoyable guilty pleasures. Coming off as a kind of urbanized Jennifer Aniston with the chops of Beyoncé, Jojo is an assured and likeable performer who can somehow embody the yin-yang persona of a suburban cheerleader slinging hip-hop attitude, as she does in the video for the ridiculously overwrought and utterly addictive lead-off single, "Too Little Too Late." It also helps that she's matured just enough so that her somewhat sexy persona makes a bit more sense now than it did in 2004, and she easily sells the cheeky and raw dance-funk of such tracks as "This Time" and "The Way You Do Me." However, it's the blissfully melodic ballads and mid-tempo anthems that make the biggest impression here.
These are well-written, catchy pop songs with a healthy dose of hip-hop rhythm that serve as solid launching pads for Jojo's superb vocal abilities. What may be a surprise is that it is really, really good. Featuring production and songs by such in demand hitmakers as Swizz Beatz, Soulshock, and Scott Storch - the man who made Paris Hilton sound good - it should come as little surprise that The High Road is a commercially oriented, radio-friendly contemporary pop-R&B album. To say that the release of her 2006 sophomore effort, The High Road, finds Jojo on the cusp of superstardom is a bit of an understatement. Released when she was just 13 years old, vocalist Jojo's 2004 eponymous debut was a bona fide hit album and garnered the young pop star a legion of equally youthful fans, as well as lead roles in two films, including the 2006 comedy RV alongside Robin Williams.