Kavelle Anglin-Christie, Staff Reporter 
Timber-Lee Heaven - Contributed
You have to be brave to hang around Miss Timber-Lee Heaven. You always have to be prepared for her to launch into an unexpected deed, not to mention be on the lookout for her sometimes brutal honesty.
'Timmy', as she is often called, is not unfamiliar with starting a conversation with a complete stranger, doing so as though she were picking up where she left off a few minutes earlier, and is always cracking a joke. It doesn't appear as if she's doing it to 'set you at ease'; instead, it's just who she is.
It's this daredevil personality, coupled with 'in your face' lyrics, that created a buzz on the dancehall scene some years ago, starting with Prada and Gucci, Boom Wine and, more recently, Bubble Like Soup.
Timber-Lee, 24, who grew up in Mandeville, says she fell in love with dancehall because of its fresh, fast-paced and often humorous lyrics.
"Like when people like Elephant Man used to sing about 'gyal from yuh know di shoes wha yuh have on a yours' and I really started to listen and wonder if I could catch that. Then I used to just listen and practise and my friends would be like 'yuh know yuh sound just like Kartel?' Then I was at 'Fully Loaded' in 2000 and heard the clash between Matterhorn and Fire Links and yow, it bad so till I even went and got the CD and learnt the whole CD. Then that's what got me into it hardcore. Then I went back to Miami to FIU and while I was there I just wrote a song about me and my friends and that was Prada and Gucci," she said.
Much later, quite by chance, she met Kunley of Ward 21 at Vendetta Studios. Timber-Lee demanded the then stranger assist her in writing a song. That turned out to be Bubble Like Soup, but after completing it she wasn't happy with the results and decided to keep the song to herself. Some time passed and she recorded the song for her god-brother, DJ Bambino. Even then she still didn't like it, saying it didn't fit the rhythm and even after asking Bambino for permission to voice Bubble Like Soup for Ward 21, which she did - surprise, surprise, she still didn't like the results.
"It's just my personality. I will always hear the things that I think are wrong with it, even though people will tell me that the songs are good," Timber-Lee said. She even had a falling out of sorts with Kudley over it. Then he made her listen to the finished product and with the excitement of her best friend, who said "it sell off!", Timmy was finally convinced. It took Bubble like Soup one year to finally spill over unto the public.
Convincing her family
Timber-Lee Heaven brings glamour to her dancehall game.
Then came another hurdle - convincing her family this was something more than a pipe-dream. For those who don't know, Timber-Lee's father is Trevor Heaven, past president of the Jamaica Gasolene Retailers' Association. Her sister is New Jersey-based attorney-at-law Muna Heaven who recently appeared as a contestant on the popular Donald Trump show The Apprentice, and her mom Fay Heaven is a former Air Jamaica purser and now a businesswoman. Not much of a background you'd expect for this raunchy dancehall diva in the making.
"Listen, people need to know this is me. Mi authentically chat bad. My mother doesn't listen to me when I speak and ask me if me born down Orange Street," she laughed and said. "And people need to know I don't live in foreign, I only go to school there. This is my yard ... If I wasn't in school I would be a professional artiste, but school is also very important to me, so I put myself far. Likkle mos' me go England," she said.
She continued: "But my mother worries. When she first heard the song and people started calling her, she was like 'when did you voice this?' My mother just wants to make sure that we are OK. She doesn't really understand the music, so she doesn't see where it will provide for me long-term. I feel better now because she is now accepting it, but my father is very chill."
As far as her very accomplished older sister goes, Timber-Lee says her family doesn't compare the two. "There is really no comparison, because they knew me from me born ... As different as we are, we are just as similar; when we are together we are like a piece of a puzzle. She is getting married and at her engagement party we laughed so hard until we started to cry and she said 'you know Timmy, I only laugh like this with you'."
Timber-Lee says Muna is equally supportive of her career as she is of hers. "Sometimes she says, 'you know Timmy you need a lawyer; I'm gonna buy a book and learn about music law'. What she thinks, I say ... The only difference is that she has achieved more academically than I have, but that is just because I have chosen a different path," she said.
Timber-Lee says her immediate goal is to graduate from school in Canada with her degree in psychology and education. As far as long-term goals go, she wants to open a centre for children with learning disabilities, as well as achieve longevity in the dancehall. "I don't like disappointments so in order to avoid them I work hard ... but one of my biggest goals is to stay grounded," she said.
