When Shontelle Layne got a call last year saying that her song Battle Cry had been picked for Barack Obama’s campaign album Yes We Can, she started leaping up and down. The 23-year-old R&B singer from Barbados was already on the way to success: her first single, T-Shirt, a sweet, post-break-up ballad, was climbing the charts on both sides of the Atlantic, and would soon reach No 6 in the UK. She already had a law degree, and had represented Barbados internationally as an athlete and swimmer. But this, Layne says, was success on another scale.

“Obama and his team really love Battle Cry,” her manager told her. “They think it speaks to his whole campaign and message.” Whether by accident or design, her lyrics seemed to fit the mood in the Democrat camp: “We’ve been through too much/ Time for us to group up/ Come on and let’s stand up now for us.” So her answer was never in doubt: “I was, like, anything I can do to help get this man into office. And that album is full of living legends: Stevie Wonder, Sheryl Crow, Kanye West. I’m looking at this thing thinking, ‘This is all greatness on here.’ And then, whoop, there’s me in the middle.”

Layne’s surprise was understandable: her first big hit was sung by someone else – she wrote the insanely catchy tune Roll It Gal for Barbados’s big star Alison Hinds. “In our world, she’s legendary – the queen of soca,” says Layne, referring to the rolling Caribbean party music derived from calypso. “I thought, ‘She’s not gonna play some little girl’s song.’ But when I played it to other musicians, they said, ‘If Alison doesn’t like that, I’m gonna eat my foot.’”

Roll It Gal was a massive hit. This encouraged Layne to embark on her own music career. Her aunt, the celebrated Bajan singer Kim Derrick, introduced her to some people. She booked time in studios, learned the rudiments of songwriting and composing software. Her own version of Roll It Gal appears, along with T-Shirt, on her debut 2008 album Shontelligence, which veers between glossy mainstream American-style R&B and wilder soca numbers.

Why did Layne give her album that clunky title? To make the point, she says, that she is more than a pretty face. She was a very academic child, expected by her family to be a successful businesswoman. Her father runs several companies, and her mother holds a high position in the Caribbean arm of Virgin Atlantic. Layne cites Richard Branson as an inspiration: she has read his books, met him several times and even stayed on his island, Necker. She likes to see herself as a company, a brand even, and will scour the small print of every contract she signs, and go through her accounts with a fine-tooth comb. “I run my own music publishing company, and I’m always thinking about how to make my money turn over, about investments and the state of the economy – because a girl’s gotta eat. I’m really glad I studied law, too. So many other artists get taken advantage of.”

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