After amassing over 20 million streams with her last EP, award-winning pop artist, SHELITA, just released her highly-anticipated self-titled album, SHELITA, and it’s one you won’t want to miss. Shelita’s rise to popularity and stardom has been inspirational, to say the least. Her unique vocal delivery and eccentric sense of style and beauty proves that she is today’s modern-day ‘Beyonce’, transforming the bounds of where music falls on the grand spectrum.
Born in Los Angeles, yet raised in Seattle, Shelita left for Europe to pursue her music career. She has independently toured the world with over 150 shows across Europe, Asia, and Africa, as well as a myriad of performances throughout the U.S.
I was fortunate to connect with her and her manager, Michael Drexler back in May at Music Biz 2019 in Nashville. Our shared interest and passion for cybersecurity, data conservation, and blockchain technology, led to over two-hours of fruitful and insightful conversation.
Since, I have followed her career closely with extreme interest.
Following the massive success of her last EP, Special, reaching #24 on Billboard, Shelita brings listeners on a 29-minute journey of her life experiences through what can only be described as “pop music history.” Each song, uniquely crafted and written, transforms the artist’s life narrative into a piece of music history for the ears. Having listened to the new album, I was able to really connect spiritually with the words and rhythms laid out in the nine-track R&B album.
Produced by Bellringer and mastered by multi-Grammy award winner, Chris Athens (Drake, Usher), this seems to be the pop-artist’s most exciting project to date. The album opens with fan-favorite, Religion!, in which Shelita vocalizes how the man she’s romantically involved with, notice one another, and how their love and support for one another is like a religion.
The potential commercial-hit then transitions into another fan-favorite, Libations!, where the artist shares how she feels about her romantic partner.
Ahead of her new album release, I reached out again to Shelita and Drexler, about the new album release.
Andrew Rossow: Describe the emotional journey of putting this together?
Shelita: Each song on the album was led in the writing process by emotion. Channeling an emotion came before any word, note or instrument was chosen. I decided I was going to dig deep inside of myself and pull the parts out that connected to the universal parts of humanity in a raw, unapologetic way. My emotions were like my colors being painted with brushes into each song in which the canvases were the songs. It takes a community and a devoted team to put out an album. There were many challenges I had to overcome before putting out the album. Choosing the medium of an “album” was not my first choice. I used to think that the album was an outdated format and I can proudly say that now I am eating those words. These songs are well suited for the album format in a way that is hard to describe with human words and when you listen to it from the original sequence from start to finish, it will make more sense to “why”.
AR: What do you want fans to take away from this album?
Shelita: Every single song connects to different parts of humanity. Everyone depending where they are in this human journey will connect differently in a different way to each song. It depends on what part of the life journey each person is on. My records are different. When you hear my records, especially this album, it activates all other senses, beyond the normal 5 senses. There are just levels and levels of senses that human beings can experience. It is beyond sound. Most people think of music as a sound, as audio for the ears, but for me, I think of sounds as all that and more, with visuals. It’s not just sound, you can see things, smell things, and visualize things when you hear music. It is a whole spectrum of the senses in one.
You can download and stream SHELITA on Spotify, Apple Music, and other leading digital platforms:
Genre: Pop
Assets: 9 Singles total
Album Sequence:
- Religion!
- Libations!
- Live!
- Tango!
- Penetrate!
- Together!
- Power!
- Save!
- Special!
