My Life, My Life, My Life

Lijarock has slowly but quickly emerged as one of the hottest up and coming songwriters/producers on the Atlanta music scene. Her music career began at the tender age of eight, when her elementary music teacher discovered her innate ability at the piano. Immediately, her teacher suggested to her mother that she enroll Lijarock in piano classes to further develop her talent. From that point, everything else was history. It wasn’t long before Lijarock was playing for everyone. After walking away from a head-on collision without so much as a scratch, Lijarock knew that her life had been spared for a specific purpose. But it wasn’t until she diligently sought God’s purpose for her life that she discovered what that purpose was. However, she openly admits that it actually wasn’t until 1993 that she finally accepted that music was that purpose. “ I know that this (music) is God’s will for my life because this is not what I wanted to do at all! I just had to step back, take an honest look at my life and see what was missing. Once I did that, I realized that unless you fully submit to God’s plan and purpose for your life, you will never experience true fulfillment or happiness- because that’s the purpose for which you were created. And that has become the driving force in my life. I was born to do this!”
Lijarock’s musical influences include various styles and genres, including Prince, Jimmy Jam & Terry Lewis, Patrice Rushen, Angela Winbush, Babyface, Ramsey Lewis, Ben Tankard, Sheila E., The Isley's, Maze, Sade’, Maxwell, SweetBack, Teddy Riley, Dr. Dre’, Timabaland, Missy Elliot and Alicia Keyes. She believes she is still growing and learning, as a musician, songwriter and producer, and relentlessly works at honing her craft. “My goal is to touch someone’s life through my music.” Some of her previous musical credits include: playing keyboards in the UAB Jazz Band under the direction of the legendary jazz great Cleave Eaton of the Cleave Eaton Orchestra; jazz piano from jazz pianist Ray Guy; opening up for Fred Hammond and Kirk Franklin with the UAB Gospel Choir; opening up for Ben Tankard, the Zapp Band and Andrae Crouch. Her more recent credits include: playing keyboards with the nationally acclaimed Atlanta-based Anita Band, the Heit Band, the Farenheit Band, the Powerhouse Band for national blues recording artists William Bell & Jeff Floyd; studio sessions with SID- writing the single “Just Us Two” for the Jamaican sensation Stacy Ann. Her newest hit single “Mind Games, which is already receiving radio airplay on 100 stations nationwide, and “All of Me” are due to be released on Tabitha King’s debut album in July 2007 via N-Da Groove Productions. Ultimately, Lijarock plans to open SheRocks! Studios, a full-fledged studio facility equipped to handle not only the artist development and recording process, but mastering and duplication, as well as video production and editing.
Lijarock’s style is unlike any other. One of her former mentors described it as “nice & smooth (chords) with a hard, driving beat.” The genre she mainly focuses on includes but is not limited to R&B, Hip-Hop, Urban/Pop and Contemporary Gospel. In the 1999 BillBoard Song Contest she received an overall rating of ‘7’ out of ‘10’- scoring in the upper 30 perenctile. Some remarks from the panel of celebrity judges included: her music is “…lyrically unique and fresh…something the masses can identify with and relate to…straight forward and clean…commercially strong and appealing- an overall good song…” Her personal motto comes from Psalms 45:1b, “my tongue is the pen of a ready writer”, or simply put in her own words, “I just believe I write the songs people love to hear because they can relate to what I’m feeling.” Every song Lijarock writes is divinely inspired and comes straight from her heart. So remember her name- because she and her posse’ are about to change the game.