Poe - Topic

Poe began writing songs on the piano at age 8 and later had her first exposure to a 4 track, saying “I fell in love with the art of recording as soon as I got my hands on those machines.” At 16, her parents' marriage fell apart and Poe left home, ending up in a squat on the lower east side of Manhattan. where she, and a group of similarly disenfranchised and homeless teens, sold fake subway tokens to survive. "I guess you could say we had our own "tokenized economy!" Poe has said jokingly.

The essays she wrote about her life in the squat earned a full scholarship to Princeton at 18, where she was able to continue honing her writing, production, and performance skills and became fascinated with the internet. Poe later moved to Detroit, where she lived with producer RJ Rice and his wife Dede. RJ introduced Poe to the Detroit hip hop scene, and the up-and-coming J. Dilla, with whom she became fast friends. Demos from that period led to a deal with Atlantic Records and Poe’s 1996 Modern (Modern later changed its name to FEI/Atlantic) debut album Hello. Hello was certified gold in 1997 and a remix of the song "Hello" went to #1 on the Billboard Dance Charts. Esquire named her one of the top 5 "Women Who Rock Our World" in 1997, and Glen Ballard - producer of the iconic Alanis Morissette album Jagged Little Pill - cites Hello as one of his biggest influences at the time.