EXCLUSIVE: Kelly Price Talks Jazmine Sullivan’s Break, Talent and Gives Advice

R&B powerhouse Kelly Price has had a record since she was 18-years-old and understands the struggles of the music business. After hearing that one of her favorite new artist, Jazmine Sullivan, announced her break from music, Price wants to advise her on how to deal with the machine.

“The very first thing I said when I heard that is she needs some different people around her,” Kelly Price tells Singersroom. “She is one of the most incredible gifted people that we’ve had in this new wave of singers. She’s one the most memorable vocalist in this era of singers.”

Being in the business for almost two decades, Price says she knows without even speaking to Sullivan that she can understand the pressure she is dealing with. The pressure because she sings “real music.”

“It does get difficult because she does have to contest with the fact that she has a voice that is in fact a ‘voice,’” says Price. “It’s not typical, it’s not common, it’s very unique; she’s not cookie-cutter; you can’t duplicate what she does just by going and picking some other kid off the street and say I want you to do what Jazmine Sullivan does.”

Kelly says she wants to have a conversation with Jazmine but for now her advice to Jazmine is “being inside the machine is stressful. Adding, “I would talk to her about being comfortable living in her skin and living inside the voice that God gave her. I don’t care what marketing schemes are put together, she will always be the best when doing what’s true to her.”

“She needs to sing what’s in her heart; she needs to sing what’s in her soul.”