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Still, Today She Continues to Fuel Quality Music Over the Decades and Into the New Millennium

Jody Watley is the gold standard of artistry. A brilliant songwriter, artist, entrepreneur, producer, and visionary. When you visit Jody Watley YouTube Channel, experience All Things Jody Watley, including concert features, interviews of the Grammy Award-winning artist and more.   

The beautiful icon in music, video, fashion and style, often referred to by her fans as “The Queen of Cool,” is as prolific as anyone who’s ever set foot in a recording studio, and as proficient as anyone who’s ever decided to be a song lyricist.  She is not only a great singer—she is a great songwriter, and great performer.

That persona—her willingness to tear down norms and traditional ideas setting a trend for modern-day women artists not to be boxed in has become her calling card.  

As one of the architects of 21st century pop and contemporary street style mixed with high fashion, her 1989 hit “Friends,” featuring hip hop/rap legends Eric B & Rakim, is the first pairing of pop/R&B/rap/dance to crossover into the Billboard Top 10 on multiple charts. 

Watley’s vision — the trendsetting, forward thinking marriage of high fashion and street fashion with music in the 80s — long before it became the norm — along with her fusion of jazz and underground club culture — demonstrates her keen pop instincts and an ease with which she crossed, and still crosses, genres. Jody Watley forged the template that is now in everybody’s playbook. 

In June 2022, the music icon was celebrated at Jody Watley Day at the Georgia state capitol where she received the Presidential Lifetime Achievement Award in community service. Watley also received her first honorary degree in 2022 –a doctorate in Philosophy in Entrepreneurship and Business Administration — from the Trinity International University of Ambassadors’ School of Business. During the ceremony, she was also given the Women of Distinction Award from the United Nations Global Women Foundation.

A previous recipient of the BMI Medal of Honor for “Don’t You Want Me,” “Looking for a New Love,” and “Real Love” amongst others, Jody Watley was inducted into the Women Songwriter Hall of Fame in 2022 along with other notable songwriters including Marilyn Bergman, Gloria Estefan, Indigo Girls, Siedah Garrett, and Loretta Lynn.

As of 2018, Jody Watley is listed in Billboard Magazine as one of the top 25 dance artists of all time and in the top 60 hot 100 artists of all time. The National Museum of African American Music named Watley as their first ambassador in 2021 featuring her on two of their outdoor digital jumbotrons. Winner of the Best New Artist Grammy in 1988, Chris Campbell from NPR’s Progressive Underground noted “Jody Watley enjoys longevity through constant evolution.” 

Her entire career is always about looking forward, unafraid to change and grow. The Chicago native’s eclectic repertoire — R&B, hip-hop, house, jazz, pop, drum & bass, ambient, spoken word – is built on a positive vision and a strong taste for artistic and aesthetic risk.

Enter into the creative realm of her electrifying performances and leave entertained, educated, and inspired with just a click here.

You can follow Jody Watley on her social media @jodywatley

#jodywatley #singersongwriter