A Woman You Should Meet: Aliya-Jasmine Sovani

Canadian expat Aliya-Jasmine Sovani now lives in LA and hosts a handful of shows on E! and Bravo. But before she crossed the border, the host/producer/writer was known for her work on MTV in a multitude of shows like MTV News, Play With AJ and 1 Girl 5 Gays. Now, she’s taking part in yet another endeavour with Yeplive, a tech company she helped found, and its newly released (seriously, it launched today) live-streaming app. We’d try to explain it, but it’s best left to the pro.

Photo courtesy of Steve Carty

You’ve done a ton of interviews by now. Which one was your best?

It’s a tie between Adele and Tom Cruise. I’m going to tell you a story that no one knows! Just before her album 21 came out, I was going to interview her at a live show. The night before, I found out a musician I was dating at the time had cheated on me and was so heartbroken. But there I am the next day, getting my makeup done, waiting to go in front of five thousand people to interview Adele and her music is playing in the background. I always play someone’s work before I interview them to get in the zone. You know her music can be depressing so the makeup artist looks at me and goes, ‘if you’re going to cry, do it now because if I put fucking mascara on you and you cry, I’m going to kill you’. I said no, I don’t cry, I’ll be fine. Then Turning Tables came on and I just started bawling.

In the middle of it Adele walks in to me listening to her music and losing it! I quickly explain about my boyfriend and she goes ‘Why the hell are you listening to my music? You’re going to kill yourself!’ We ended up chatting and it was really cool. By the time I went out to interview her it was so comfortable, we basically just finished our backstage chat. When she performed she dedicated Turning Tables to me. It was amazing.

And Tom Cruise?

I interviewed him just after he had jumped on Oprah’s couch over Katie Holmes. Remember that? I thought he was going to be one of those people who came in with an entourage and a list of questions I couldn’t ask, but he didn’t. He showed up with no entourage and said I could ask him anything, even about the couch. He was so courteous, honest and our interview was so good. It ended up getting cut short after only a few minutes, but afterwards I was at my desk and heard someone asking for AJ and I look up and Tom Cruise is at my cubicle asking if I got everything I needed. My jaw must have hit my keyboard.

From all the shows you’ve worked on, which has been your favourite?

When I got to do MTV News every day, it really gave me the ability to be on top of all the breaking news. I reported live when Michael Jackson died. A lot of it was just old school like: waking up, checking wires, checking what’s happening. We’re talking before Twitter.

We also did something called MTV Impact, a documentary show that was our contribution to youth issues and social issues. It was really rad. I went to Sudan and did a documentary on this 14-year-old girl who was arranged to be married to this like 60-year-old man who was HIV+ and she would have been one of five wives. I was really proud of the doc and am sad that that kind of thing doesn’t exist anymore on MTV.

It feels like you’ve been a TV personality for a while now. How did you first get your start?

I’ve always really been interested in journalism. My mom actually has a voice recording from the 80s of me pretending to be a BBC reporter. I went into broadcast communications and ended up in Toronto, interning at Fashion Television. I would stay late and put together a few segments that I kind of produced and my supervisor ended up airing a few of them! From there, I became one of the youngest line producers on Much on Demand on MuchMusic. Once MTV came to Canada, I applied to be a producer there and they gave me a shot.

How did that translate to an on-air job?

It was before MTV even launched, my new boss there had this thought process that since I was already writing and producing and was the same age as everyone auditioning to be a host, why wouldn’t I audition too? I didn’t think that it was necessarily for me right away, I was totally a baseball cap and runners kind of girl. But obviously I did and the rest is history. I think coming from the creative side of it first was helpful because I was always treated like a producer and not just a talking head.

How did you eventually make the move into covering sports?

It’s funny, people ask me this question all the time and the truth is that I’ve been doing it all along. I guess my work with MTV was just a lot more mainstream, but I had been working freelance on the side for the NHL Network for years.

I was a playoff reporter for the NHL the year the LA Kings first won the Stanley Cup. I was a social reporter for TSN for the Euro Cup. And, originally, before MTV Live started, I actually had a segment called Jock Talk where we would interview athletes. But I’ve essentially always covered sports.

What’s next for you?

Right now I’m working at NBC, hosting shows on Bravo and E!, which is exciting. Also, a few years ago my best friend started this tech company called YEP Live and asked me to join in. It actually just launched! It’s a live-streaming app that’s map-based and allows you to see pins all over the world. If you click on one of the pins, it shows you what people are live-streaming in that moment. It’s not based at all on who you’re following but where in the world you want to know what people are listening to or watching. From the riots in Baltimore, to Coachella, to a scientist documenting gorillas in Rwanda, once you click on the pin you can see what they’re live-streaming from their phone. When you’re watching videos on YouTube, you might be watching something that’s old or unreliable, but this gives user the power to do what I do, to be a reporter and see things as they’re happening.