"It just wasn't a good situation. They didn't have a direction for me at the time," Jeffers says of the short time she spent working with Dre. "It just wasn't my time yet."
After moving back to Philadelphia, however, things started to swing her way once again, as she teamed up with DMX's Ruff Ryder crew for the compilation Ruff Ryders Vol. 1 and contributed vocals to the Roots album Things Fall Apart. Both projects showed Jeffers' range: She could hang with hard-core rappers like DMX and the Lox and also chill out with alternative hip-hop groups like the Roots. In fact, her vocals on the Roots' "You Got Me" were so soulful and spiritual, she was mistaken for Erykah Badu.
After a successful tour with DMX, the Lox, and Jay-Z, Jeffers finally released her first solo album, Let There Be Eve, and it surprised even her when it debuted at the top of the Billboard charts in September to become the highest-selling debut by any female rap artist. Yet Jeffers, who is fielding scripts for her acting debut and writing material for a new album she is set to begin recording next month, says her experiences with DMX and his crew have helped prepare her for stardom.
"Being around them and watching DMX -- the things he was doing, his shows, his stage persona, and how he acted in public has really helped me," Jeffers, 20, says. "When I was onstage for that little bit of time with him, it was my show. It was like, 'This is my concert now, and now y'all are here to see me.' I couldn't wait until I was rocking thousands, and it has happened so fast."
Jeffers, who did some modeling as a child and played basketball in high school, has always balanced the masculine and feminine sides of her personality. That comes through clearly on Let There Be Eve. One minute she's crooning about growing up as a latchkey kid ("Heaven Only Knows"), and the next she's talking trash with the boys ("Dog Match"). Jeffers, however, says that being a woman in the male-dominated rap world hasn't been as difficult for her as one might think.
"At one point, I was a tomboy," she admits. "Then I started giving in to my feminine side and wearing makeup and stuff. I'm comfortable around guys, but I don't want to be a tomboy, because I know when to sit and bat my eyelashes. There were maybe three or four other females in Philadelphia who were rappers when I started out. It wasn't difficult -- it was fun, because I got more attention. Queen Latifah, MC Lyte, and Salt 'N' Pepa weren't really role models for me, because I never really wanted to be like them. But I enjoyed their music a lot and the fact that they were all in the same business, but so different from each other."
While Jeffers says she wrote all the lyrics for the album, at least part of her success is because of the beats provided by producer Swizz Beatz. For the single "Gotta Man," he lays down a track of rattling drums, high-pitched vocals and chiming strings that's more infectious than a nursery rhyme. Jeffers says she knew she could do something special with the music the first time she heard it.
"When he played it for me, I just went crazy and knew I had to have the song," she says. "I told him, 'That's my song,' and he said, 'Well, start writing.' Originally, somebody else was supposed to have it, but they didn't come through. So I took it, wrote it, laid down the vocals, and it was mine. You can't get it out of your head -- that's why I loved it so much. I didn't even know the words, and I was humming it. I knew it was a song that everyone was going to want to sing."
In the equally catchy "Love Is Blind," perhaps the best track on the album, she writes about a friend of hers who can't escape an abusive relationship. Enraged, she imagines enacting a vigilante murder, shooting and killing the abusive boyfriend.
"It's about my best friend, who went through a bad relationship with her baby's father," she says. "The last verse is not real, 'cause she doesn't die, and I don't kill the guy. But I still have rage against that guy, because she was so hurt. It hurt me, too, because I consider her my sister, and I wish I really could have got somebody to kill him. I think that gets people's attention."
While Eve doesn't shy from showing off her striking good looks (she often wears low-cut tops that reveal the bear claws tattooed on her chest), she's not as lascivious as much-criticized rappers like Lil' Kim and Foxy Brown, whose tramplike antics get as much publicity as their rapping.
"I believe that what [Lil' Kim, et al.] do works for them," says Eve, who describes herself as a "pit bull in a skirt" in the song "What Ya Want." "Everybody has something that works for them, so I can't knock it. Eve is just worried about Eve. Let There Be Eve is a woman's album, and I'm a regular woman who went through regular problems. I just want people to relate to me."
Eve and the Ruff Ryders are scheduled to perform on Wednesday, December 15, at the Celebrity Theatre, with Destiny's Child, and Blaque. Showtime is 7:30 p.m.
