Sitting more than pretty (photo: Richard Louissaint)

There’s Something About Mishal

Vocalist Mishal Moore keeps it real, period. Not in that hand on the waist, head swirling, finger in your face sort of realness - though I don’t doubt she could go there if pushed. She’s more of that Billie Holiday and Nina Simone real. The kind that lays it all out there and says, “This is me, perfectly imperfect”, inviting all of us to feel the same way about ourselves. 

It’s her soul sharing sincerity that has drawn folks to the classically trained Moore’s popular Youtube videos, which are part testimonials and part testing grounds for new material that she’s working on. Only a member of the viral community for a little over a year, Moore’s “When I Loved You” was a Youtube featured video - sending close to 1,000, 0000 hits from folks who wanted to know more about the singer and her music. Including a new friend in Germany, who Moore has never met but speaks to on the phone, and plans to visit when she’s in Europe this summer promoting her upcoming album. “In some ways they do kind of know me because I put myself out there,” shares Moore. “I find the best music is honest music, just writing what you know. Real people will connect with real music and I only want to connect with real people, so I’m not going to write about anything just for sale’s sake. It’s really nice to know that I write music that people enjoy and it touches them on a level that maybe a few years ago I wouldn’t have been able to write.”

Moore admits that in 2002, when she decided to leave Webster University Conservatory where she was majoring in musical theater, she wasn’t a writer. Out of school, she found herself singing backup for an up-and-coming folk artist and writing generic “I love you, why don’t you love me” sorrow ballads. “All of my songs were based on just what I thought the general public wanted to hear and not what was coming from me,” Moore acknowledges. “I did that with the first album, I did that somewhat with the second album and I just wasn’t tapping into being okay with writing about things that affect me or things I wanted to reflect on.”

What changed all that was a move from southern Florida to New Jersey, which was encouraged by three time Grammy Award winning producer and engineer Commissioner Gordon, who recognized that Moore’s home state is better suited for building the pop careers of former Mouseketeers, not indie artist. It was clear she needed to go. Combined with Moore’s “what I got to lose” mindset, a series of destined events also played a role in her listening to Gordon’s advice and taking a chance on relocating.

Back in 2003, she went to an audition to become one of Lauryn Hill’s backup singers. By now many of us know, or at least think do, what Hill’s life was looking like during that time. Moore and her cousin were the only ones who showed up and they spent hours waiting for something to happen. Gordon, who was working with Hill, was also at the audition and Moore’s cousin couldn’t stop staring, swearing that he looked familiar. It was later on that Moore learned that her father used to baby-sit Gordon back when he was 11-years-old. Three years after the seemingly fruitless audition, Moore received a call about a soon-to-be released movie in need of a new artist to write a song that coincidently Gordon would produce, bringing him back into her life.

Whatever happened to the movie or the folk singer she used to work with back when she left school? Moore has no idea. What she does know is that there’s power in destiny. Moore is where she’s meant to be and her writing has gotten 10 times better due to her being more comfortable with what she has to say. “The move up to New Jersey was really what changed my whole outlook because I’m writing about things I’m connected to now. My music became more meaningful to me.”

With the resolve of someone who has tapped into her true self, Moore refuses to go back to the time when she hated the songs she produced. She confesses that at the age of 20, the whole experience of attempting to break into the music industry almost caused her to crack under that same people pleasing pressure that our beloved Lauryn Hill claimed had her imprisoned once she dropped her first solo album. “I was trying to please everybody, not knowing that I should have listened to myself. But I didn’t have myself to listen to because [I] was numb, the door was shut and there was nobody talking to me,” recollects Moore. “It’s like this shell of a human being and somebody telling this person what to do and you just do it. Five years later, I have my own voice and something in the back of my head that says, ‘You don’t need to do that’. When I was 20, I didn’t know and when you don’t know you fall for everything.”

In a society where being famous is considered a career choice and those attempting to “make it” are willing to do so at the self-sacrificing price of mimicry, it’s heartening that indie label Ill Friction wants Moore as is. “They don’t want me to change anything. They were like, ‘We want to give you this deal on one condition- that you don’t change. If you want to be fat, be fat. If you want to lose weight, it doesn’t matter.’ I was like, ‘Cool with me ‘cause that’s all you were going to get anyway,” states Moore matter-of-factly with a chuckle. She knows her value and is willing to compromise when necessary. But if any part of compromising means Moore is demanded to do vocal runs like Beyonce and sell her soul for album sales then you can forget it. “Oh, and I’m not going to take off my clothes either!” she adamantly adds. 

Mishal Moore is in a good place. With a label backing her, a Warner Brother’s distribution deal, producers like Kenny Dope working on her album that is slated to come out this summer and songs that are all Mishal, Moore is excited for this new phase in her life. She’s swimming in self-awareness and positivity, and wants her next musical effort to mirror that. “I want to make sure that anytime I put a CD out it represents how I feel at that moment because I’m going to be singing it over and over again,” shares Moore. “This is my third album I’m releasing but finally they’ll be something in back of the release. It won’t just be a release and me sitting around, waiting to see what’s going to happen, like I’ve been doing. This time I have promotions and people backing me, who are supporting me and that’s really important. That’s what I needed for the past few years.” 

Living in a time where the Internet is used by “unknowns” to catapult their aspirations, those who have been down for Moore since day one may wonder what will happen to her video blogs now that she’s hit her stride. Right now, Moore doesn’t see herself stopping. She intends to share her upcoming travel experiences and the growth of her career with her faithful fans. “It would be wrong of me to cut it off right at the point it’s starting to become a little bit more consistent,” acknowledges Moore. But Moore doesn’t plan to continue doing it forever, recognizing that there will be a point in her career she’ll be put out there even when she doesn’t want to be.

One part of her that Moore vows to never shy from sharing is a kidney disease she’s had since 16 and has caused her to be turned down by 10 different health insurance companies. “You have to be in perfect health to get health insurance,” states Moore. “In America, I think, we’re like number 86 as far as health goes because of the way we take care of our own. I went to the hospital in England and it’s free, everything is free. From prenatal care, everything is free and you don’t have to pay for anything. That’s how it used to here, but they changed that due to the whole HMO thing. It’s just crazy”. As a self-employed person Moore pays $310 out of pocket for medication that helps keep her alive. Though her disease is a very personal issue, like a true truthteller, Moore believes that it is her duty to shed light on the injustices we all face. “For some people, it’s just a matter of hearing it from somebody that you admire and look up to. I don’t try to put myself belief on people, it’s just about being a human being. It’s inhumane not to treat people who are sick. I talk about it and I hope that once I get to that place where I have a higher pedestal I can do a lot within different communities and countries.”

It’s obvious that Mishal Moore isn’t and will never be anyone’s tragic performer. That has to be said because we’re used to watching artists whose words, passion and voice are able to penetrate our souls, lose themselves far, far too early. We’ve seen how the emotional strain of putting all of yourself into your art and out there for the world to see can become too heavy. But, there’s no need to worry about Moore because this lady does more than sing the blues - she sings whatever she wants and that makes all the difference.

“Blackberry Tea”

 

“Work It”

“Today”

 

“A Dream”

More Mishal: Myspace and Youtube