I’m sure you all remember the review of Monique DeBose’s debut album Choose The Experience Vol I from last month. Well, finally Monique had found the time to answer a few questions about her music and herself.

Q: Please tell me more about yourself. Who has influenced you musically and who was responsible for you starting to sing?

Monique DeBose: I am someone in search of myself. In search of my life’s purpose and in search of connection with people.
Musical influences: I love Ella Fitzgerald. She moves me. I remember being in high school and a friend got me my first Ella Fitzgerald CD- it was her and Andre Previn (a more recent album) and I literally sat at my parents piano next to the CD player and listened to the album, just one song of the album, for at least 3 hours. I couldn’t get it. But once I did, I was in love. She was one of my first teachers. But I use to sing as a kid, I loved performing (I was really shy, but I still had a great love for it) I often thought of my life as a musical (I still do today). But growing up, music was a part of my life, if I was playing an instrument, listening to my big sisters radio stations with her or my dad’s albums while he sat on the porch on the weekends and read the paper. I loved music. While I was in college, I met a group of students who started a vocal a capella group. I joined them, I think I had finally gotten over my fears at that point! I use to go to every saturday morning to La Pena Cultural Center in Berkeley, CA, and studied under Joey Blake (he had studied under Bobby Mcferrin in voicestra). That’s where I really started singing out loud. We’d be there for like 3-4 hours, people doing different lines, voices and then we would take turns going into the center of the circle and improvise over the bed of voices we had created. I loved that.

Q: How much of yourself can be found in the lyrics to songs like Recognize, Ready For Love or Where Do I Stand?

Monique DeBose: I am in all the lyrics. They are my stories.
Recognize I think I wrote for myself and my mother.
Where do I stand- I had recently gotten out of a 2 year relationship, I thought this guy would be my husband, and I was still holding on. We’d broken up and he had gone with a friend to Paris for a little vacation, he told me he would call me when he got back- he didn’t. I found out from a friend that he was back from his trip and I couldn’t understand why he didn’t do what he said he would do. It was a lonely time for me. I didn’t know how to move, but knew I needed to. So that song is about that process.
And Ready For Love - it’s funny, I wrote that song without knowing that I would experience those lyrics one day. I identified somewhat to my lyrics but really did once I got into this current relationship I am in.

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