Alexa Goddard

Growing up in the modest Hampshire community of Blackwater roughly thirty miles outside London, English vocalist Alexa Goddard was raised alongside three older brothers whose eclectic listening habits left a lasting mark, though Whitney Houston, the Spice Girls, and India.Arie proved especially formative. While still fourteen she was noticed during a regional talent competition and soon began working with manager-producer Stewart “Stew Mac” McLean, who booked sessions for her at Sony’s Berlin studios. At seventeen she joined American prog-rock outfit Trans-Siberian Orchestra as a backing singer on successive winter tours across the United States and Canada, contributing vocals to “Child of the Night” on the band’s 2009 release Night Castle.

Her debut digital single, a 2008 rendition of the Veronicas’ “Speechless,” gained additional exposure through a German television advertisement. In 2010 Goddard and McLean introduced the YouTube outlet AlexaMusicTV, where she uploaded that track alongside further covers; within slightly more than twelve months the platform accumulated eleven million views and fifty-six thousand subscribers, ranking among the United Kingdom’s leading music channels. Additional cover singles followed, the most successful being her version of Soulja Boy’s “Turn My Swag On,” which climbed to number twenty on the British charts. April 2014 brought the announcement of a five-album agreement with Jay-Z’s Roc Nation imprint. Material issued under the label fused hip-hop and EDM textures; the first offering, the buoyant “Marilyn,” saluted Marilyn Monroe, while “So There” appeared the following September.