Interview with the Freak Like Me Singer, Adina Howard

Howard Gives Her Fans a Private Show

Sex sells. Plain and simple. Whether if it's a half-naked woman on a magazine cover or a man covered in muscles and baby oil in a music video, the appealing sights sells. So music executives knew exactly what they were doing when they signed Adina Howard to their label. The overly sexual songstress made young men's palms sticky with her debut single, Freak Like Me and had women upping their phone sex skills with T-Shirt and Panties. Now on album number three, Adina Howard is bringing the real sexy back (sorry, Justin) with her latest release Private Show.

Before urban America knew Adina as the sexual showstopper, the Grand Rapids, Michigan native stated that her musical influences growing up included Prince and Madonna. Being from a very supportive family, she reflected back when her mother knew that her young daughter was a young starlet in the making.

...I don't know what my momma heard when I was a child but she would always push, push, push for me to sing. And what I sound like today, of course, I didn't sound like when I was seven years old. Back then, I couldn't sing at all so I don't know what she was hearing.

She continues.

She still has cassettes when she recorded us and I listen to myself and I'm like, "Wow." Because you know how you can listen to some seven-year olds or eight-year olds now and you know they can sing? That wasn't me.

In 1995, Adina released her single, Freak Like Me from her debut album, Do You Wanna Ride? When the song hit the radio airwaves, it sparked the revolution that made women comfortable to express their true feelings through music about love and lust. Howard recalls where she was when she first heard her single on the radio.

Los Angeles. I was driving down Sunset early in the morning. I can't remember what I was doing but I was listening to the radio. I was like "Dag, that song sounds familiar" and I said "Oh, s#*t. That's me." And I was excited and then they were like make it or break it and I had to calm down. Don't get hype now. I remember the radio station saying hmm, that's interesting. She's coming out saying this, that and the third. Let's see if the label supports this.