BY TEINO EVANS, Staff Reporter
Jana Bent (right) with daughter Selah, mother Eunice Bent and Khalid, the father of her child in the background. - CONTRIBUTED
SINGER JANA BENT, who emerged on the local scene in the mid to late 1990s with popular songs like 'Say You Care' and 'No Regret', which featured Bounty Killer, says singing may no longer be a part of her future.
Bent, who had been missing in action, locally, since 2004, says she had left Jamaica in pursuit of other areas in music and has since struck some amount of success.
"I left the beginning of 2004, the last thing that I entered was the World Championships of the Performing Arts in Hollywood, both song and dance categories. I won a few medals and through that I made some contacts who encouraged me to move to L.A. because they had no agents in Jamaica," Bent said.
GRAMMY-BOUND
Bent made the move in February of 2004 to Los Angeles, and in her short time there, even managed to work up a ticket to attend the Grammys.
"I wen't to the Grammys, which was very exciting. It gave me a glimpse of where I wanted to be in the near future," she said.
Some of these plans Bent has been pursuing include taking acting classes in L.A. and writing songs. Bent said she met with a number of record companies and producers about working on an album and getting signed, but found that working through The Royalty Network, a publishing administrative company in New York that she had been signed to for some time now, was more viable.
"What they do is connect writers and producers with artistes, so from there I started writing and producing songs. I found that it was easier for me to write and produce on my own and then allow the company to pitch the songs to established artistes, and I think this is more viable that" Bent said.
So far, Jana says she has done songs for artistes like Mariah Carey, Mya, Hilary Duff and Christina Christian, a Trinidadian artiste who had been a finalist in American Idol.
"They listened and did demos but none actually made their albums, but this gave me great encouragement and incentive to keep going at it...it has always been my long term goal to write songs for other artistes," Bent said.
Having gone in pursuit of her music dreams, Jana found the fulfillment of another aspect of her life, that of true love.
According to Jana, when she arrived in L.A, one of her big suitcases fell on her foot and cracked her bone. It so happened that the Orthopedic (Khalid Channell) who treated her at the hospital, asked her out on a date, and from there the two fell in love and decided that they would get married.
However, the two never had the chance to marry, as problems and complications would arise and the window of opportunity closed.
"We decided to have a baby and the baby came nine weeks early. The childbirth was very difficult, to the point where I almost died, my heart stopped and they used the Defibrillator to revive me and my daughter, Selah (which means musical meditation - found in the Bible book of Psalms) stayed for five weeks in the hospital," Bent said.
With this terrible ordeal, Bent decided to take a year off from music for her own recovery and to see to her daughter's health and returned to Jamaica in February 2005, but because of work commitments, Selah's father remained in L.A. and made arrangements to take turns to travel every two months in order to spend time.
Everything had appeared to be returning to normal, as Jana took on a full time job and her daughter's health was no longer threatened.
"We had Selah's first birthday party in November and we got the all clear that her health issues were gone, so I got a fabulous nanny, Dionne Parkes and I started to work fulltime with Communications Consultants Limited," Bent said.
However, tragedy struck, as one week after the birthday party, Selah's father died of a heart attack.
With tears filling her eyes, Jana took a long pause to sip on some tea, the silence reflecting a wound that was still fresh and painful.
"Of course it has changed everything, the last thing I feel like doing is jumping on a stage and performing, but I know that my work in music is not done," Jana said as she unveiled her latest news.
"My publishing company called to tell me that they just sold one of my songs to P. Diddy for one of his artistes, 14-year-old Jordan McCoy. Right now they are debating whether to make the song a single or put it on an album," she said adding, "I know that Khalid had something to do with that, he's looking out for us."
With her eyes closed, Jana gasped, "I do have a strong faith in God and the fact that I'm still here, means something and I do have family and close friends who continue to support me," she said.
However, one thing is for certain, the Jana that fans once knew no longer exists as she says, "anything that I write for myself now, would be completely different."
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