"I always wanted to be a hybrid,” says Cindy Gomez. But although she means that her pulsing songs reflect her diverse tastes for electronic pop, urban and rock music, she could just as easily be talking about her multi-lingual, multi-ethnic background – or her multimedia, multi-platform, tech-savvy introduction to the world.
The pioneering Gomez will be the first artist to make her debut in a mobile game, “Dance Fabulous” on N-Gage by Nokia, through collaboration between the Finnish handset manufacturer and Interscope Records. Planned for release in late spring of 2009, the game will include a dancing Gomez avatar and five of her songs, positioning her at the forefront of a trend that marries music with mobile entertainment. It’s one of several showcases for Gomez’s triple-threat talents, along with an upcoming album and a film debut slated for next year.
Gomez’s arrival on the scene, via millions of mobile handsets worldwide, comes less than a year and a half after she met producer and songwriting collaborator Dave Stewart, best known for his tenure in the Eurythmics. Her first big break came when Stewart appeared on Larry King Live alongside Ringo Starr, and the call went out for a backup singer. Gomez flew down from Canada on short notice, and impressed Stewart right away. “She needed no rehearsal at all,” Stewart said.
The two quickly hit it off while talking about music in the CNN green room. “It became clear that she could make up melodies very easily,” Stewart explains. “And because she learned to sing in several different languages, she’s able to flip into other ways of thinking melodically,” he added. (For the record, Gomez can sing in eight tongues: English, French, Spanish, Italian, Latin, Hindi, Cantonese and Mandarin.)
To Stewart’s ears, she instantly stood out among contemporary pop-oriented singers, wielding a sense of history and knowledge of international music. “She’s sultry and sexy, but also a real performer who’s in control,” he says. “We experimented a lot with songs and rhythms in the studio, but everything we did was meant to set up her big voice. It’s a vision that we can see going all the way to arenas – she’s a real singer, and a real songwriter with a knack for huge melodies.”
The joint effort resulted in a danceable sound built on percolating club beats, with the pining “Again & Again” as her first single. “Out Of Your Mind” and “World Gone Crazy” incorporate stinging guitar sounds, while “Street Dancing” hints at Gomez’s Latin roots. “Her determination and ethic reminds me of Beyonce or Madonna,” says Stewart of the relentlessly upbeat Gomez. “She’s very positive.”
Raised in suburban Toronto, Gomez is of Colombian and Belgian descent. Her grandmother on her father’s side sang opera and played piano, lending young Cindy early exposure to a variety of musical styles that also included classical music, Spanish songs and Edith Piaf records. “When I was eight years old, I told my father that this is what I want to do for the rest of my life,” she says.
As Gomez matured, a series of modeling gigs led her to the Miss Latin Canada pageant.. As a result, she landed opportunities to sing on Spanish-language television shows in Canada and Mexico, all the while attending university and working a day job in Toronto.
The meeting with Stewart in early 2008 led to their first collaboration. Gomez sang on demo recordings for a musical version of the 1990 film Ghost, which Stewart is writing and producing with veteran songwriter Glen Ballard. Subsequently, Stewart and Gomez began work on original tracks for her first album, expected later this year. That’s when the producer envisioned a novel strategy for unleashing Gomez’s talents on the world.
Stewart, who co-founded Nokia’s Artist Advisory Council in 2008, presented Gomez with a unique chance to connect with new listeners via mobile entertainment. While most popular cell phone games rely on established artists for music content, Stewart saw the chance to use Dance Fabulous as a way to introduce Gomez’s music to new listeners. “It’s a way to establish direct connectivity between artists and fans,” Stewart says.
“I immediately thought it was a great idea, and an amazing avenue for people to get to know a new artist,” says Gomez. She traveled to Germany to don a motion capture suit, matching her avatar’s movements with her own dance moves. The game will soon be available in all N-Gage compatible mobile devices, instantly placing Gomez and her music in the palms of tens of millions of consumers around the world.
Dance Fabulous will also be a key plot element in Street Dancing: The Movie, in which Gomez will play a starring role. The film, about an Indian boy who travels to Mumbai for a dance competition hosted by Gomez’s character, will include a musical collaboration with Academy Award-winning film composer A.R. Rahman and Dave Stewart.
Gomez’s busy schedule will carry her to Vienna for LifeBall, Europe’s largest AIDS-related charity event, this spring. She will perform a new song, “I Bring You Love,” at the opening Ceremony, which she and Stewart donated to the disease-fighting charity. In addition, her upcoming appearance at Cannes will also foreshadow Street Dancing: The Movie. “Saddle up, it’s the thrill of the ride,” Gomez sings in “World Gone Crazy.” Soon enough, it seems, the world will be going crazy for Cindy too. The album, on Interscope Records will be coming in fall 2009.
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