Ledisi

Ledisi生于美国爵士之乡新奥尔良。在她只有八岁的时候，她就已经和新奥尔良交响乐团一起演出了。在Ledisi少年时代，她经常在附近的公园观看她的母亲和当地的一支R&B乐队的演出。在随父母搬到Oakland之后，Ledisi也开始像她母亲一样在当地的一个乐团中担任主唱。但不久之后，Ledisi就离开了那个组合组建了她自己的乐团。
　　后来，Ledisi长期在旧金山的一家名叫“Beach Blanket Babylon”的小酒馆中的演出，这是她日益出色的表现开始一起了大家的关注。后来，Ledisi又以她名字的中间名组建了一支名为“Anibade”的乐团。Anibade在海湾地区的Bruno's、the Black Cat和Rasselas等多家俱乐部中都相当的受欢迎。歌迷开始要求他们发专辑，而Anibade很快就录了一张Demo《Take Time》。KMEL电台播出了这张唱片，得到了歌迷很好的回应。虽然赞扬声与批评声共存，但Ledisi还是有机会得到了与唱片公司签约的机会。
　　2001年，Ledisi的处子专辑《Soulsinger》通过LeSun Records发行，其中描述一位父亲性侵犯自己女儿的歌曲《Papa Loved To Love Me》成为本张专辑中最具争议的歌曲。2001年9月，《Soulsinger》在亚马逊同类专辑中的销量名列第五位。在芬兰、挪威、英国和荷兰，这张《Soulsinger》都非常畅销。此后，Ledisi还与贝斯手Marcus Shelby合作为Noir Records录制了一张爵士专辑。2007年8月，Ledisi改签主流大公司(Verve Forecast)之后的首张专辑《Lost and Found》正式发行，专辑中融合了soul、funk、gospel、jazz与R&B的元素。凭借这张专辑，Ledisi被公告牌杂志称为2007年度最值得关注的10位新人之一。
by Andrew Hamilton
Ledisi (means to bring forth in Nigerian) was born in the Big Easy where she sang with New Orleans Symphony Orchestra when she was eight years old and spent many adolescent hours watching her mom perform with a local R&B band, often in a nearby park. After the family relocated to Oakland, CA, Ledisi followed her mom's lead and sang in a local band but left to form her own group and identity. She's most noted for her continuous performances in Beach Blanket Babylon, a long running San Francisco-based cabaret that features song parodies, celebrity impersonations, and enormous hats; she got the gig after being nominated for a Shellie award in 1990 for her role as Dorothy in a local version of the Wiz.
She later formed Anibade, Ledisi's middle name, which depending on what you read means "to bring forth luck" or "my mother is great" in Yorubu. The players are: Sundra Manning (keyboards and chief songwriter), Cedrickke Dennis (guitar), Nelson Braxton (bass), Wayne Braxton (saxophone), and Tommy Bradford (drums); while the lineup is similar to Chaka Khan & Rufus, the sound -- on record anyway -- is mellower than Rufus' energized, excellent-engineered sounds. Ledisi sometimes fuses R&B, hip-hop, urban, jazz, and funk in the same pot.
They built a hot reputation in the Bay area at Bruno's, the Black Cat, and Rasselas (local clubs). Fans kept asking about a record so the band cut a demo, "Take Time," that radio station KMEL aired and got a good response; the stroke prompted Ledisi to seek a deal with the major recording companies, all who praise and turned them down in the same breath. Frustrated, but not thwarted, they cut the critically acclaimed Soulsinger and released it on LeSun Records (owned by Ledisi and Sundra), January 1, 2000. "Papa Loved to Love Me" -- a personal account of a father sexually abusing his daughter -- is one of the CD's most riveting and controversial tracks.
The CD has done well without the benefit a major distributor. LeSun's grassroots promotion/publicity campaign has been highly successful, they go beyond the mere artist/company web page and saturate the net with info accompanied by a full gigging plate where they knock 'em dead while promoting and sell their CD, tees, and other items. Amazon ranked Soulsinger number five in Los Angeles (September 2001), and it's popular in Finland, Norway, London, and Amsterdam.
She's done a jazz album with bassist Marcus Shelby for Noir Records -- Shelby's independent based company in San Francisco -- that further illustrates her amazing skills. Her resume includes singing in choirs, performing jazz, and studying opera and piano at the University of California Berkley's Young Musicians Program for five years. She's also done commercials and soundtracks for the Sci-Fi Channel along with appearing on the same stages with some of the world's most beloved entertainers. Her third studio album, Lost & Found, was released in 2007.