Joss Stone

When nineteen year old British R&B singer Joss Stone started work on her third album, ‘Introducing Joss Stone,’ she knew there was one person she needed to collaborate with, Lauryn Hill.

Instead of stalking Hill's management or record-label folks, Stone turned to a more intimate source to make the magic happen. "I called her mum every day for like a month and a half," Stone tells MTV. "I couldn't get a hold of [Lauryn], and there was no answer from [her camp] — I couldn't get a yes or a no. So I just kept calling her mother."

And Stone's persistence eventually paid off, with Hill hopping on board to contribute to the track "Music," which Joss described as her love letter to song.

Another collaboration to look out for on the disc is one with Stone's favorite hip hop star, Common. Stone tells MTV, "with rappers it's difficult, because sometimes you can get all that gangsta rap, which means nothing. Sometimes it's good to listen to, in certain situations, but there's no substance to it. With people like Common or Lauryn or Nas [who she did not work with on the album], they're real poets. They're really saying something, and that's why I needed them on the record. ... I wanted artists who had something to say."

Stone began writing the follow-up to 2004's ‘Mind, Body & Soul’ last April and brought over 50 songs with her into a studio in Barbados in September. According to MTV, ‘Introducing’ will boast a dozen tracks, including "Girls, They Won't Believe It," "Tell Me 'Bout It" (the first single) and "I Wish," which she said is a "calm 'F--- you' that just needed to be done.

The album, co-producer Raphael Saadiq, is expected to hit shelves this March.