Posted May 6, 2008 -- Karina Pasian isn’t your average teenager. Her Friday nights don’t consist of spare time with her girlfriends. Instead, time is spent putting the finishing touches on her freshmen project, My First Love. And while this 16-year old rising starlet is new to the game, her lead single “Sixteen @ War” suggests otherwise. BET.com caught up with Karina to discuss the logistics of her new album, her hopes in remaining a regular teenager, and how she felt about two hip hop titans squabbling over her.
It’s easy to assume Karina’s Def Jam solo debut is dwelling over a past relationship. But with A-List contributors assisting with her project and a huge conglomerate backing her every move, the subject matter of her material is clear and concise, “My First Love is the title of my album. It’s about my love of music. It sounds like it’s about a boy at, but later on you find out it’s about music. I worked with Gordon Chambers, Barry Eastman, Ne-Yo, The-Dream, Tricky Stewart, Rico Love, and The Architects,” Karina told BET.com
With “Sixteen @ War," her first offering from My First Love, garnering a positive response since it’s debut several months prior, the tune has placed Pasian in a category many young singers fail to reach their first time out the gate. Karina said of Tricky Stewart and The-Dream collaboration, “I feel like it’s something that should be relevant nowadays with the younger demographic being so involved in music. It’s just something that I’m trying to bring awareness to. I’m trying to show the struggles that kids go through growing up in single parent homes and the hard times they go through during their teenage years.”
Although Pasian’s talents have impressed the likes of the President Bush as well as many other prominent figures, her biggest shock came from the bidding war she was thrown into between hip hop mogul’s Jay-Z and Sean “Diddy” Combs. Though her humility leveled her emotions, Karina realized just how talented she’d become, “I was honored a lot by that. It wasn’t only Puff & Jay but it was also Warner and Atlantic. I was in the middle of it all and it was kind of weird, so I was just going around to all these different record labels singing and playing for them,” Karina said of the intense bidding period. And while many offers were tempting, L.A. Reid and then president, Jay-Z, made sure she left their office the newest signee on Def Jam. “LA Reid and Jay-Z were very welcoming when I met with them” Karina said. She continued, "Jay-Z wouldn’t let me leave the building when I met with them.”
Considering Karina’s fresh outlook on life, it should be easy for people to grasp that she’s still a regular teenager. And if you can’t hear it through her music, she has no problem relaying the message herself. “I want everyone to know that I’m still a regular young teenager. I’m not trying to preach or go beyond my age, but I have a lot of morals and I respect myself and I feel like a lot of women nowadays should respect themselves as well. It’s something that my parents taught me a lot, so I hold it high in my list of priorities."
Karina’s debut album, My First Love, is slated to hit stores June 3 via Def Jam Recods.