SHOLA KAYE
Bio
Did Shola always want to be a singer?
Definitely! One of her earliest memories was of wearing one of her mum’s voluminous old wigs and silver platform sandals, pretending she was Shirley Bassey.
Born and raised in west London, Shola was an avid reader of music magazines while she was still in primary school and wished she could have been in The Supremes. She learned the recorder and then moved on to the violin. She also studied tap and ballet dancing.
As a teenager she had a healthy interest in soul and dance music but also played the clarinet and enjoyed performing classical music with the school orchestra. She then went on to study the sciences at A-level and went up to Cambridge to obtain a degree in Natural Sciences.
After this she taught briefly in a UK secondary school and then moved to the USA, studying for a while in Atlanta before moving to New York City to work for a consulting firm.
So how does singing tie into all this?
Once she returned to London, she couldn't ignore her love of music any longer and received vocal tuition from Line Hilton at the Singline vocal studio. Within a year of starting her singing lessons, Shola joined two bands and performed at Shepherd’s Bush Empire as support on the same bill as Tony Hadley and Paul Young, and then at Hyde Park in front of 15,000 people.
Shola went to Los Angeles to attend the Seth Rigg’s SLS vocal camp and learned loads from this legendary vocal technique teacher who has names like Stevie Wonder, Michael Jackson, Natalie Cole, Ray Charles and Luther Vandross on his student roster from past and present. She also studied musicianship and composition at London University's Goldsmiths College.
And right now?
Shola is a keen songwriter, plays the guitar and has performed her songs at venues in New York and Los Angeles. She also earns a living as a session singer and has recorded music for studios in the UK, France and Brazil. She has her own home studio which she uses to record vocals and produce demo versions of her original songs.
