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She describes herself as ladylike, girly, smart, pink, sparkly, vibrant, funky, happy, showoff-y and humble. I've been writing my name Chrisette Michele since I was a little kid.' No one wants to hear 'Payne is coming to the stage.' My brother, on the other hand, who raps, thinks that's a wonderful name. The newcomer decided to drop her surname - 'because it's Payne!' she exclaimed. 'On the fourth time, he said he liked it,' she recalled. Working with those hip-hop stars gave her confidence, she said, even though Jay-Z made her come up with four different vocal hooks for his 2006 'Lost One' single on his Grammy-winning 'Kingdom Come' album.

The following year she was recording on tracks by Jay-Z and Nas (who grew up in the same housing project as Michele's mother). Her break came in 2005 when India.Arie saw her open-mike gig at a New York club and invited her to open shows. She didn't get turned on to jazz until a high school teacher handed her Astrud Gilberto's 'Girl From Ipanema' album.

The daughter of a high-school English teacher and a gospel-choir director (her mother is now her executive assistant), Chrisette Michele Payne grew up singing in church. For me, I wanted to write a song that wasn't written yet.' 'It's also about just making tough decisions and it's about discipline.

'Abstinence is about so many things beside just not having sex,' she said. A proud Christian, she sings about abstinence in 'If I Had My Way.' Vocally, she sounds like a blend of classics (Sarah Vaughan, Ella Fitzgerald, Billie Holiday) and neo-soul sisters (Erykah Badu, Corinne Bailey Rae, Amy Winehouse). Michele, 25, is both old-school and old-fashioned. One of her projects was writing and directing a music video of 'Love Is You,' the current single from her debut disc, 'I Am.'

'I still had to take science and math - all the classes that you need for your degree that you didn't feel like doing in the beginning,' she explained last week by phone while running errands. But she recently went back to finish the final 20 credits. 'I went to the graduation ceremony, embarrassed in that big ugly black cape that I took off as soon as we finished, but I wore the hat around all day,' said the New York singer/songwriter, who makes her Minneapolis debut tonight at Trocaderos.Īfter she signed a recording contract with Def Jam two years ago, she got sidetracked from her studies at Five Towns College on New York's Long Island. But rising R&B star Chrisette Michele's biggest honor came two weeks ago. She has recorded with hip-hop stars Jay-Z, Nas and the Roots, performed three times on David Letterman's show and earned a gold record for her debut album.

Does chrisette michele love is you have curse words