At times some of her material and use of melisma has been criticized for being overproduced and overused, respectively. Emma Morgan of Yahoo! Music dismissed JoJo as "mercilessly multi-tracked à la J. Lo, her voice encoded flatteringly as she too-many-notes her way through a succession of R'n'B beats and hooks that owe everything to studio wizardry and little to simple songwriting", lacking experience and soul. While admitting that JoJo is "surprisingly adept at frenzied, sexually possessed hollering", Alex Macpherson of "The Guardian" believes that the singer "is, however, at her best when compulsively dissecting emotional situations straight out of high-school movies via the medium of big, heartfelt choruses". Pegging JoJo as "a teen-pop star with an R&B singer's voice", Kelefa Sanneh of "The New York Times" continued, "she can outsing much of the competition, but it also means more ballads ... and more not-quite-credible lovesick lyrics." JoJo's earliest memories of singing are performing songs by Etta James, Ella Fitzgerald, Mariah Carey and Whitney Houston for customers in hair salons. Her mixtape, "Agápē", was influenced by musicians Joni Mitchell and James Taylor.