Jackson Free Press

It's been five years since Kris Kelli moved from her hometown—and her home country—to branch out in the American music scene with the goal of not returning until she had something to show for it. Kelli's current tour, which sees her opening for English R&B duo Floetry, brings her to Thalia Mara Hall in Jackson on Saturday, May 14.

Born and raised in Kingston, Jamaica, Kelli says she has always been a singer but didn't seriously pursue music as a career until 2002, when an artist manager discovered her performing Nelly Furtado's "Turn off the Light" at a Karaoke night. From there, she began touring internationally and released her debut studio album, "My World," in Japan in 2006.

"All this time, I was still based in Jamaica, in Kingston, but still traveling everywhere, and then I said, 'You know what, I kind of want to take my music to another level,'" Kelli says.

Then, in 2011, she connected on Twitter with Russell "Block" Spencer, the CEO of Block Entertainment who hip-hop listeners may know from his work with artists such as Yung Joc, Boyz N Da Hood and Ciara. Through her research into which songwriters, producers and artists she wanted to collaborate with, Kelli already knew that she needed to be in Atlanta, where Spencer is based, and when he said that he would be interested in working with her, she decided it was time to make the jump stateside.

"It was literally the next day after that we followed each other, and some months after that, I left Jamaica for good, and I said, 'I'll make the move to Atlanta, and I'm going to stay and just start working,'" she says.

While Kelli's fans now know the singer by her self-proclaimed title as the "queen of dutty pop," she didn't have a name for her signature sound before arriving in the United States in 2011. The term itself is a play on the Jamaican pronunciation of "dirty," but stylistically, the genre combines elements of all the musical varieties that have influenced Kelli throughout her career, including pop, R&B, dance-hall and reggae music, she says.

"Everywhere I went when I moved to Atlanta, everybody used to say, 'You're so unique. You sound different. What do you call it?' But I never really had a name for it," she says. "It was always, 'Well, the type of music I do is this; it's a mixture of this and this,' until one day, I was like, 'You know what, instead of trying to explain what it is, let me just come up with a name for it. Let people get on that wagon.' Hopefully, one day, you'll hear Beyonce doing a dutty pop record, or you'll hear Rihanna doing it."

Kelli's latest studio project, "3rd World Problem," which she released on iTunes, Amazon, Google Play and other digital retailers on Friday, April 15, will be many listeners' introduction to her music, and she planned accordingly. Kelli spent almost five years on the recordings with producer and songwriter J'Rell to ensure that the album was the best representation of her sound. The single, "Me and You," features hip-hop star Rick Ross, an artist with whom only a few years ago, Kelli says, she never would have believed she would get to collaborate.

"This is exactly why I left Jamaica—to get opportunities like this—so I was in complete awe," Kelli says. "... It's been crazy, especially when news leaped back to Jamaica, because we put a teaser on allhiphop.com, and it just went off. Everybody in Jamaica was like, 'Oh my God, I'm so proud of you! I knew you were doing something big,' because they didn't hear from me for a while, and I kind of purposely wanted it that way. I wanted to leave Jamaica and just kind of work, work, work. Instead of trying to go there to advertise what I'm doing, I said, 'If it's working, they'll come to me.'"

Kris Kelli performs at 8 p.m., Saturday, May 14, at Thalia Mara Hall (255 E. Pascagoula St.). Tickets are $45 to $55 at experiencejxn.com. For more information, find Kris Kelli on Facebook.