About me
Born to church people in Charlottesville, VA--an evangelist and a pastor. Raised in church and around church culture for the first part of her life, Yolonda's earliest memories are of wooden floorboards, church pews and a sea of Black people in their "Sunday Best" staring intently back at her. She began singing more publicly in high school when classmates discovered her voice was "a lil' different." She also began writing songs in high school, inspired by Ms Lauryn Hill's Miseducation album. She quickly caught the attention of event and project organizers and found herself working as a professional singer and recording artist just out of high school and while attending both Hampton University and The University of Virginia.
Featured on gospel, Christian Contemporary, rock and blues albums as both a soloist and background sound enhancement, Yolonda names "singing across genres" as a highlight of her music career thus far. She has also written songs for and with gospel, rock and Christian Contemporary artists as well as for an independent movie score. She's been on hiatus aside from "studio vocals for hire" while mothering her four children through "the little years," as she calls them. She's making her way back onto stages of all sizes here as she enters into 2024. When asked if she's ever considered working in ministry like her parents Yolonda answered, "When I was a part of the Christian church, I did work in ministry to the degrees that I understood such a thing at the time. I no longer identify as a Christian or as a church-goer. But my work in the world and my life every day is service to my own head, my own destiny, my immediate kinship circles and out into the world at large from there. In this way, I am still a minister." She is passionate about Love as an art form and deliberate daily practice.
