Mila Jam

Mila Jam
Born	(1989-02-22) February 22, 1989 (age 32) Aurora, Illinois
Awards	NYC GLAM AWARDS,[1] AWARDS

Mila Jam is an American transgender singer,^[2][3] songwriter, dancer, actress^[4] and LGBTQ activist.^[5][6][7][8]

Early life and education[]

Jahmila Adderley, known as Mila Jam was born in Aurora Illinois on February 22 1989. She was raised in Columbus, Georgia by her mother Stephanie Adderley, an IT technician, and Phillip Adderley, a CEBAF lab technician. She attended Columbus High School. Before continuing her career in New York City at the American Musical and Dramatic Academy, she performed in several national stage productions and televisions commercials.^[9][4]

Career[]

Mila Jam performed as the popular YouTube impersonator Britney Houston.^{[10][11][12][13][14]} She was known for creating parodies of popular videos and posting them on YouTube within days of the original videos' releases. She began creating her parodies while in the national touring company of Rent.^[15]

Several of her parodies have over a million hits, with her parody of Rihanna's song Umbrella having over two million.^[16] For her parody of the Pussycat Dolls' song When I Grow Up, Jam recruited four drag queens to serve as the "Britney Cat Dolls".^[17] She choreographed and starred in the 2008 MTV original television pilot Newsical, which was not picked up.^[18] She recorded the song "And The Crowd Goes", which was written and produced by Jonny McGovern and released on his compilation, The East Village Mixtape 2: The Legends Ball,^[15] and is working on an album of original material.^[17] The song also features NYC-based LGBTQ rapper Jipsta.^[19] Mila has toured internationally with the Broadway musical RENT, has performed alongside James Brown, Mark Ronson, Laverne Cox, Travis Wall, Jody Watley, Lady Kier(Deee-Lite) & Natasha Bedingfield. She has appeared on the BBC's The Lilly Allen Show, MTV and MTV NEWS, and featured in special articles in The Hugffington Post, Billboard,^[20] BOSSIP,^[21] MTV.com, OUT.com^[22] and Perezhilton.com. Mila has also been a frequent host of the original YouTube talk show series titled I’m From Driftwood.^[12]

Mila Jam's new video Faces^[23][24] was released to coincide with International Trans Day of Visibility and she was joined in the video by Laverne Cox, Tituss Burgess, Candis Cayne, model Geena Rocero, RuPaul's Drag Race's Peppermint, Transparent's Zackary Drucker, Trace Lysette and Zoolander's Nathan Lee Graham. The song has been called an anthem for the LGBTQ movement and focuses on one's self acceptance, inner beauty, and sense of belonging.^{[20][25][26][27]}

FACES is about looking in that mirror and hearing, ‘Do I belong, am I enough, will someone love me for who I really am?’ We wear smiles all the time but hide in fear and loathing because we feel different. The journey is universal no matter who you are. And, working through the dark uncertainties is all about learning to radiate your own light. Bravely. Unapologetically. Authentically. Happily.

— Mila Jam talks about faces to huffington post.^[28]

Awards[]

Mila was awarded Best Video and Dance Artist at the 2013 GLAM Nightlife Awards^[29] and she was named Odyssey Nightlife Awards Breakthrough Artist in 2015 .^[30]

Discography[]

• "Walk" (2010)
• "This is Love" (2011)
• "Warrior" (2011)
• "Masters of the Universe" (2013)
• "Faces" (2017)

References[]