Today we’d like to introduce you to Michele Leigh.
Hi Michele, please kick things off for us with an introduction to yourself and your story.
I was born and raised in Miami Beach, FL on October 25th, 2002. For as long as I can remember, my life revolved around music. Whether it was being in the chorus in school or hosting at-home karaoke nights with my friends, I had always made sure to decorate my life with music. As I grew up, I took on instruments such as the soprano and baritone ukulele, piano, and guitar. During my teen years, I started to write my songs based on real-life experiences I was going through at the moment. I began writing about my love life, my hardships, and my friends. I was never one to traditionally fill up a diary or a journal with fully-written entries.
Instead, each page included a different song, each one encompassing its own story that I felt the need to pour into my journal at that moment. I always found myself taking my life and translating it into lyrics and music. I wanted to shed new light on the hardships I had encountered in my life and reshape my experiences into something artistic, almost like a capsule to look back on. In February 2020, I released my first song on Spotify. I did not receive attention until around August 2020, when I released my debut EP, ‘Sunflower’. It immediately gained traction on TikTok and began to have a life of its own. Since then, I have released a single ‘Let Me Know’, one Sophomore EP ‘Tattooed at 17’, and am working on my third set of songs that I am beyond excited to share with the world in 2023. This release is one of my most ambitious projects up to date and will be rolling out in 2024. In the meantime, I have been performing live shows around Boston and soon in the NYC area, which has been and will be an absolute blast!
Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
Being an artist has proven to me again and again that this is not a smooth road to take. I have always struggled with perfectionism, have worried about what people thought more than I should have, and have always been a little hard on myself when it comes to showcasing improvement and growth in my work over the years.
In the very beginning, I was throwing myself into a pool of sharks by releasing songs since it didn’t take a lot of work for people in my school to find out who I was writing about. Additionally, I had originally been releasing my music on SoundCloud and felt as though I was setting myself up to become the laughingstock of the school. I had received great feedback but had inevitably come to face silly names such as being called a ‘SoundCloud rapper’, or a ‘wanna-be popstar’ and at one point, playing my music in the car was an inside joke for a group of people I knew at the time. It was safe to say that there were mixed feelings about my music coming from the people in my high school.
Eventually, I began trying to grow my audience past my high school, seeking those who were looking for new music, and potentially creating a fanbase. I had come to terms with the fact that I was not going to be able to change the perspective of most of the people in my high school and reminded myself that I was always able to rely on those who did support me at the time, and kept encouraging me to push through. My best friend, Rocio, had been my rock throughout all these years and was the person who helped me muster up the courage to publish my first song, book my first show, and has continued to show me endless support. She would swear up and down, ‘If there are a million of your fans on this earth, I am one of them, and if there is one fan on this earth, it’s me, and if there are none, I am not on this earth.”
Since gaining traction, I always found it challenging to ‘top’ my previous works. Though I believe I have grown and improved in my artistry, I always struggled to find ways to encapsulate it to the point where I would be undoubtedly proud of what I had created. To work with this struggle as opposed to against it, I began to work with other artists, instrumentalists, producers, and mixers who have all been just as dedicated to my journey as I am, and we have been putting together a release in the coming year that I’m very excited to be sharing, and feel like showcases the artist that I have grown to become over the years.
Appreciate you sharing that. What else should we know about what you do?
I am a singer born and raised in Miami Beach, FL. I have bounced between the guitar, ukulele, piano, and electric bass. I would say that I’m most known for my song ‘Sunflower’, which went viral on TikTok in recent years. I’m most proud of my opening gigs for artists that I am a huge fan of, such as having opened for Beach Bunny, Blu Detiger, and Boyish.
One thing that currently sets me apart from others is the diversity of my performance settings. I will go from performing for crowds ranging from 20-400 people. You name it, I’ve probably done it. Whether it’s school-coordinated concerts, opening for large artists, playing at house shows, jumping into open mics, supporting philanthropic jams, or even acoustic sets at coffee shops. I’m always continuing to diversify the venues I play at, and wouldn’t trade these experiences for the world.
We love surprises, fun facts and unexpected stories. Is there something you can share that might surprise us?
This is a little silly, but something that most people who know me or work with me don’t know about me is that I was nominated for the ‘Most Likely to be Famous’ superlative in my high school as a senior, and was mentioned in the yearbook for it. Little did my high school friends and I know I would actually gain a remote amount of traction and am still hoping to live up to that superlative in the years to come.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://linktr.ee/micheleigh
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mmicheleigh
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UClv3DTfK7qQ0sPQekElEsZg?view_as=subscriber
- SoundCloud: https://soundcloud.com/mmicheleigh
- Other: https://www.tixr.com/groups/breakingsoundnyc/events/breaking-sound-nyc-at-pinkfrog-cafe-01-31-89312
Image Credits
Vika Brennick, Praagna, Ethan Schlesinger, Ellie Fulkerson, Gianna Gioia
