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She released her first nationally distributed album, Even Closer with Hieroglyphics Imperium Recordings and her music was part of the movie soundtrack Honey. In 2002 she and her family formed Skyblaze Recordings, an independent music label. After high school she studied songwriting while briefly attending the Berklee School of Music in Boston.Īfter attending Berklee, Goapele returned to the San Francisco Bay Area and released her debut album, Closer, which eventually reached #63 on Billboard’s Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums chart. She sang in the Oakland Youth Choir and became part of a music group called Vocal Motion. Goapele attended the Berkeley Arts Magnet School, where she led a preteen peer support group and was involved with groups combated racism and sexism. Goapele (pronounced gwa-puh-‘LAY) means to move forward in Setswana, a Southern African language. $29.50 Mohlabane is an American soul and R&B singer-songwriter whose music mixes neo-soul, trip-hop, lieder, and jazz. Goapele plays with Samaria at 8:30 p.m., on Saturday, Sept. “And at the end of the day, I’ve just got to let it go and be true to myself. “Sometimes I’m just like, I cannot hold onto this anymore, and it’s time to say something,” she says. In Closer, it was “Red, White, and Blues,” an overdubbed, synth-streaked track written about our post-9/11 society and the ways in which people were competing and accusing one another of not being patriotic enough, and she did so again in Strong as Glass, with the album’s self-titled opener about the hardships and challenges that women face on a day-to-day basis. Sexy subject matter aside, Goapele also makes sure to include at least one song in each of her albums that tackles a social or political theme. I should be able to say what I want to say now.’ ” “But then I was like, ‘I’m a grown woman. “To me, it felt like I was really putting myself out there,” she says. With “Play,” a crepuscular, bass-punctuated tune overlaid with sultry lines about wanting “to play” or “touch” someone, Goapele especially felt as if she were “going out on a limb.” Love and relationships are common themes in her music, but whispering suggestive and explicit lines was a new one for the songstress, who says she had to kick everyone out of the studio so that she could record it alone without being self-conscious. In recent years, Goapele, who now lives in Los Angeles and dabbles in acting, has been making an even more concerted effort to try new things, releasing songs that are more orchestral and symphonic, like “Breakthrough,” or more pop-based and faster in tempo, like “Hey Boy.” But branching out has its caveats, and admits that she’s been “afraid” of taking chances, and that she’s forced herself to “just do it anyways.”
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Take, for instance, “Romantic,” another early Goapele track that is sultry, twangy, and brimming with bluesy guitar chords, or “Undertow,” a glitchy and emotive electronic number from her 2012 album, Break of Dawn. “Closer” may be a lush, dreamy effort rooted in neo-soul, but her other songs differ in style. Nothing feels broad enough.”Īnd she’s right. “I understand it for marketing purposes, but I’ve always hated defining myself with a genre. “I think it’s too limiting,” Goapele tells SF Weekly.
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To date, it has been listened to over 4 million times on Spotify and has been featured in a slew of films ( Honey) and TV shows ( 90210) as well as in remixes by big-name rappers like Drake and YG.Īs a result, many people know of Goapele, who has a throaty, athletic voice, because of “Closer.” But she hesitates to pigeonhole herself as solely an R&B or neo-soul artist. But “Closer” still remains her best-known and most beloved hit. 17, has released four more albums and a handful of singles. Since then, Goapele, who will perform at Mezzanine on Saturday, Sept.