I was born in Los Angeles and returned here eight years ago to pursue my lifelong dream of being a performing artist. When I was four months old, my parents packed up their West Hollywood duplex apartment into my Dad's 1980 Toyota Corona station wagon with baby me and their black cat Barrymore, and we hit the highway to San Francisco.

After almost fifteen years working in the art and entertainment industries of LA, my mother, a singer/actress, and my father, a painter/rock'n'roll drummer (Big Brother & the Holding Company, Janis Joplin) decided it was time to build a new life back in their old stomping ground, the Bay Area, and raise me away from the wild Hollywood life. We settled in the cozy, little hippie-haven town of Fairfax in West Marin County, the scenic land across the Golden Gate Bridge.

For all of my childhood, adolescence and teen years I would live in the same bizarre 1920s-built house surrounded by towering oak trees on a vinca-covered hill frequented by families of deer; the neighborhood passersby usually gazed up at our virtual tree-house in some kind of wonder. My father, not a superstitious man, once told me of a spirit presence he felt there in his downstairs studio. I suppose if ever there were a type of house to host these kinds of unknown forces ours would be it.

I started musicals and dance class at age four. Piano lessons at seven along with soccer. My life would progressively carry on through the end of high school in this manner of extracurricular madness. Dad gave me an early start on the Beatles. It is this fact of my childhood combined with having been brought along as a youngster to all of his BBHC concerts to which I attribute my inherent psychedelic rock'n'roll mentality. Mom loved Polish pop singer Basia and would play her cassettes non-stop in the car. They both loved Steely Dan, jazz, soul and Great American Songbook standards. Whether it was awaking to my dad's drumming or falling asleep to my mom's major7th-laden piano freestyles, our home was constantly filled with music and I knew early on that I was passionate about it. My first songwriting experiments began at age six (listen to my interlude track "Beginnings") :-)

I got my first CDs starting in the third grade: Ace of Base, No Doubt, TLC, Brandy, Salt ' n' Pepa, Mariah Carey and Janet Jackson. I began to digest and emulate the R&B vocal stylings of my early idols. By high school, I had become obsessed with Stevie Wonder, early soul music and hip-hop. I joined a teen a cappella group as well as the Oakland Youth Gospel Choir and performed around the Bay Area.
When college came around, however, I called upon my years of dance training: I auditioned for UCLA's World Arts and Cultures dance major, got accepted, and made the move back to my birthplace.

Once acclimated, I obtained an agent and attempted to navigate my way through the dance industry scene. I never got comfortable, however, as I began to simultaneously unearth my discomfort in being the background of another artist and my true calling of singing and songwriting.
While hopping around to various auditions, I eventually connected with a young aspiring producer from St. Louis. We gathered weekly at a little apartment in Koreatown with his amateur recording setup and I started writing my first full songs.

A couple years, a couple producers and a handful of demos later, I was introduced to multi-platinum producer JR Hutson who offered me my first production deal after singing for him on the spot in an impromptu meeting. Henceforth, I became immersed in my first real artist development phase.

The next few years were filled with immense creative and emotional growth. I began building a buzz around the industry and LA's open mic circuit, held my first artist showcases and took my first major label meetings, while juggling up to three waitressing jobs at one point. I thought I was ready to take on the world as a 22-yr-old pop act but in retrospect realized I had only scratched the surface of my creative expression. I was still finding myself, my confidence, my voice and it was filtering through the cracks. Business politics among my management team went sour and the couple deals we were entertaining faded into oblivion.

The next phase of life would bring about my greatest loneliness, but also a creative awakening and maybe my greatest accomplishment. JR, my main mentor and collaborator, took a major leave of absence from my project to produce soul star Jill Scott's album "Light of the Sun." Around the same time, I experienced my first real episode of heartbreak. I cried and cried for months, while summoning the courage to take matters into my own hands and tell my story. I sought out and remixed instrumentals of music I loved in order to get the sound I wanted and recorded myself on my cheap bedroom setup. A couple years and a rocky mountain of patience and logistical/emotional turmoil later, I released the final product of this period online in the summer of 2012: my debut full-length project "Tall Tales."

The response thus far to this body of work has meant the world to me. To everyone who has listened and supported, I thank you from the depths of my soul. To those who have spread the word and expressed their true belief in me in this day when hype/money is king, distractions run rampant and attention spans are fleeting, I cherish you. I am currently dreaming up new works, trying to maintain balance in this hazy-crazy city of LA and be appreciative in each step of the journey.