Goapele

Goapele Mohlabane records contemporary R&B under a single name and shapes her polished work around influences ranging from Nina Simone to Sade and Portishead. Raised in Oakland by a South African political exile, she came from a household steeped in activism and social awareness. Early on she enrolled at the Berkeley Arts Magnet School, directed a peer support circle for preteens, and joined campaigns fighting racism and sexism. She also performed with the Oakland Youth Choir and took part in the semi-professional outfit Vocal Motion. After finishing high school she moved to Boston to study music theory at the Berklee School of Music, where she simultaneously developed her songwriting craft.

Her first independent album, Closer, appeared in 2001 just after neo-soul’s commercial height, yet its poised mix of classic soul, jazz, and trip-hop textures earned a contract with Columbia. That association produced the expanded Even Closer in 2002 and Change It All in 2005, the latter featuring contributions from Linda Perry, Jeff Bhasker, and Sa-Ra. Following several years without new music, during which she gave birth to a daughter, Goapele relocated her Skyblaze label to the independent Decon and delivered Break of Dawn in 2011, an album that fell just short of the Top Ten on Billboard’s R&B/hip-hop chart. Maintaining a three-year cycle, she issued the eclectic and uplifting Strong as Glass in 2014 and the Dreamseeker EP in 2017.