LOCAL HERO

This month's local hero is: Goapele

By: Kendra Smith

Let’s assume that success in the music industry was established based on where you are from and how well you represented it. Now, let’s take a close look at the family history and roots of the lovely and talented female R&B singer Goapele. Her New York-born Jewish mother and South African political activist father moved to Oakland. While residing in Oakland, her brother, Namane Mohlabane and another man by the name of Theo Rodrigues, founded the label Skyblaze. As the female artist of the family owned business, Goapele produced spiritually powerful, soulfully sweet, and officially seductive music that listeners have no choice but to admire.

When you successfully mix Jazz, Hip Hop, new-age Funk, Melodic Soul, and R&B you produce classic feel good music that represents a well raised work of talent. Furthermore, when you have celebrity fans such as The Roots, Talib Kweli, Magic Johnson, Prince, and Stevie Wonder, your stardom has no where else to go but higher, and closer to a dream. The soulster brings fresh new energy with her latest album entitled Change It All. Many of the classic cuts on this album were recorded at her studio (Skylight Studio, Oakland) with the help of fellow music makers like Jeff Bhasker (The Game), Bay area hip hop producer Bedrock (E-40, The Team), Sa-Ra creative partners (Bilal, Jill Scott), veteran producer Linda Perry (Pink, Christina Aguilera), and fellow soulster, Dwele. The result – a collection of politically and socially inspired love songs that remain true to Goapele’s firmly planted roots.

For a woman whose name means ‘to move forward’ in Sitswana, a South African dialect, Goapele strongly lives up to her moniker. Following comparable footsteps to her father, Goapele puts in even more work to satisfy her interest of enforcing positive change. She and Skyblaze founded a website with the same name as her album. www.changeitall.org is an online community organized to promote positive change in communities all over. On this site, you can view photos, Goapele’s musical message, and highlights of political and social change makers. The website has exclusive interviews from artists such as Kanye West, David Banner, Latoya London, Ying Yang Twins, and Dwayne Wiggins expressing their views and opinions on the subject of positive change.  There is also a forum for Goapele’s fans to network and collaborate on ways to enforce positive change and growth in today’s society.

Whether or not success in the music industry is accomplished on the basis of what hood you came from or how deep-rooted your family trail is, being a well-known loved and respected icon in the industry requires loyal fans. What better way to increase and keep these fans than to give back by showing you care. With positive changes in the making, Goapele has accomplished and is accomplishing her dream of being a role model, powerful musician, and all around positive change maker through the success of her talent.