Skip to main content
jem
  • Born: May 18, 1975 in Cardiff, South Glamorgan, Wales
  • Years Active: 1990s-2000s
  • Genre: Rock & Alternative

Before she straddled the border between electronica and pop/rock with songs like "They," Jem Griffiths began the roundabout road to songstress stardom in Cardiff, Wales, where the singer was born and raised. She later attended Sussex University, balancing her course work with an emerging interest in music. Although still enrolled at Sussex, Griffiths became a talent scout for local DJs and helped promote the city's club events; she also helped launch the electronica imprint Marine Parade while rubbing shoulders with Lo Fidelity Allstars and breakbeat techno producer Adam Freeland. After dropping her last name and moving back home, Jem began building tracks on her own, as well as fine-tuning her voice. Not content to stay in one place, Jem relocated to London with demos in hand. There, she collaborated with producer Guy Sigsworth (picking up a writing credit for the Madonna track "Nothing Fails" in the process) before landing in America and hooking up with hip-hop producer Ge-Ology and programming whiz Yoad Nevo (Bond, Sophie Ellis-Bextor). Together, they tweaked Jem's music into an amalgam of soft electronica and soothing, Dido-like vocals. Such an appealing sound found an audience in early 2002, when radio DJ Nic Harcourt -- an employee at L.A.'s taste-making KCRW station and host of Morning Becomes Eclectic -- began spinning the breezy Jem track "Finally Woken." This exposure led to a deal with ATO Records, which issued Jem's introductory EP, It All Starts Here, in autumn of the following year. A full-length effort entitled Finally Woken appeared in March 2004, and the hauntingly appealing "They" (which featured a sample from the Swingle Singers' adaptation of a Johann Sebastian Bach composition) found success on both sides of the Atlantic, even peaking at number six in the U.K. Jem's music subsequently found its way onto a number of movies and TV shows, and she returned in 2008 with her second effort, Down to Earth. ~ Andrew Leahey & Johnny Loftus, Rovi

Advertisement