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"Avoiding the comparison between Shontelle and Rihanna is about as difficult as resisting the urge to pop bubble-wrap. Both singers hail from Barbados, they both trade in radio-friendly R&amp;amp;B tunes and they attended the same summer camp as teenagers. But who exactly is Shontelle? As her debut single &amp;#039;T-Shirt&amp;#039; climbs up the charts, we hooked up with the lady herself to find out. What&amp;#039;s the story behind &amp;#039;T-Shirt&amp;#039;? &amp;quot;It&amp;#039;s kind of a girlie anthem. When you&amp;#039;ve got a special guy in your life, sometimes you get a little depressed when he&amp;#039;s not around. When you&amp;#039;re really missing him, you want something that belongs to him to keep his memory going. His T-Shirt&amp;#039;s one of the best things because usually it smells like him and you can put it on and curl up with it.&amp;quot; Have you had a good reaction to the song? &amp;quot;Really good. I knew that a lot of girls were going to relate to this song and that&amp;#039;s exactly what happened. A few guys have even come up to me saying, &amp;#039;I love that &amp;#039;T-Shirt&amp;#039; song. I know it&amp;#039;s really a girlie song but I like it because any guy wants to see a girl in his T-Shirt. That&amp;#039;s hot.&amp;#039;&amp;quot; Is &amp;#039;T-Shirt&amp;#039; a good representation of your album? &amp;quot;For the most part. My album has an overall pop/R&amp;amp;B feel to it and a lot of the songs are very melodic and easy to listen to. At the same time it&amp;#039;s very versatile and I&amp;#039;ve showcased a lot of different types of music. I come from Barbados so I wanted to share with the world the music that&amp;#039;s in my blood - reggae, soca, dancehall.&amp;quot; Your album has a fairly incredible title: Shontelligence. Who thought of it? &amp;quot;Shontelligence? It wasn&amp;#039;t me! One day we were hanging out in the studio, things were getting a bit silly and one of the guys said, &amp;#039;How about we play a word game with your name? Whoever thinks of the most words using &amp;quot;Shontelle&amp;quot; gets a free lunch&amp;#039;. We were like, &amp;#039;Shontelevator, Shontelevision, Shont-helicopter, all these silly things!&amp;#039; Then my engineer turned round and said, &amp;#039;Damn guys, that&amp;#039;s some real Shontelligence&amp;#039;. A little lightbulb went on in my head and I was like, &amp;#039;That&amp;#039;s a great album title&amp;#039;.&amp;quot; Being an attractive young woman from Barbados who sings R&amp;amp;B songs, are you fed up with being compared to Rihanna? &amp;quot;It doesn&amp;#039;t bother me at all. There&amp;#039;s so much curiosity and intrigue surrounding us because a lot of people didn&amp;#039;t know about Barbados before Rihanna. People are so fascinated that this girl just came out of the blue, and then not too long after I came out of the same place. Also, if you&amp;#039;re going to compare me to Rihanna, how can that be a bad thing? She&amp;#039;s gorgeous, she&amp;#039;s on top of her game and she&amp;#039;s the biggest popstar in the world right now. I don&amp;#039;t mind being compared to that, it&amp;#039;s a compliment!&amp;quot; Is there any sense of healthy rivalry between you? &amp;quot;Not really, we&amp;#039;ve never really talked about anything like that. She&amp;#039;s only ever been really supportive to me. She&amp;#039;ll say, &amp;#039;I&amp;#039;m so happy for you, I can&amp;#039;t believe this is happening for Barbados&amp;#039;. She&amp;#039;ll tell me which of my songs she likes best and she&amp;#039;ll sing them for me - she&amp;#039;s so cute! From my side of things, all I can do is aspire to get to the level she&amp;#039;s at. I want to be winning Grammys right alongside her!&amp;quot; The story goes that you made her do push-ups at cadet camp... &amp;quot;Yeah, we were in cadets together and it&amp;#039;s a military organisation so that&amp;#039;s what happens. I remember when I first met her at summer camp. She was taller than the other girls her age and she had such striking features and these amazing green eyes. I was like, &amp;#039;That girl&amp;#039;s going to be a supermodel&amp;#039;. One day Little Miss Rihanna and her friends showed up late to an important meeting and I happened to be the drill sergeant on duty. I wasn&amp;#039;t a beast of a sergeant or anything, but my superiors were watching so I had to discipline them. I was like, &amp;#039;Drop and give me ten&amp;#039;.&amp;quot; Has she forgiven you? &amp;quot;Yeah, we laugh about it all the time now. I say to her, &amp;#039;You&amp;#039;re the big boss now, I have to look up to you!&amp;#039;&amp;quot; Finally, is it true you&amp;#039;re obsessed with The Little Mermaid? &amp;quot;God yes, I know every word of the script by heart! When I was a kid I really related to The Little Mermaid because her voice was so beautiful that the evil queen wanted to steal it from her. I remember thinking, &amp;#039;Wow, I wanna have a voice like that&amp;#039;. Also, her dad was very strict with her so she&amp;#039;d find creative ways of doing the things she was passionate about. I was kinda like that.&amp;quot; How were you &amp;quot;creative&amp;quot;? &amp;quot;Well, most teenagers say to their parents, &amp;#039;I&amp;#039;m going to a sleepover with the girls&amp;#039; and end up in a club. But I&amp;#039;d say, &amp;#039;Mum, I&amp;#039;d going to a club&amp;#039; and end up sneaking into recording studios. I used to work on my music behind my parents&amp;#039; backs because I thought they&amp;#039;d discourage me. Fortunately I don&amp;#039;t have to lie to them these days.&amp;quot; &amp;#039;T-Shirt&amp;#039; by Shontelle is available to download now. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.digitalspy.com/music/interviews/a146342/shontelle/>