Ledisi Biography

The American R&B and jazz singer known as Ledisi was born Ledisi Anibade Young in 1972 in New Orleans. Ledisi grew up in a household inspired by music; her stepfather was a local drummer and her mother was a singer in a Louisiana R&B band. By the time Ledisi was only eight, she was performing with the New Orleans Symphony Orchestra. Although her talents were evident and well-known in the New Orleans area, when the family moved to California, Ledisi at first found herself somewhat musically adrift.  

Attending junior high school in Oakland, Ledisi rarely sang publicly, although when she did, she was praised for her mature vocal talents which belied her young age. As her confidence grew further, she made up for some lost time and established herself once again as a local talent, performing on stage in San Francisco musicals and attending University of California Berkeley’s Young Musicians Program to study piano and opera.

After forming her own record label, LeSun Records, Ledisi released the album Soulsinger, featuring the single “Take Time,” in 2000. Although the album didn’t chart, it set the stage for her R&B breakthrough, the album Lost & Found, in 2007. Lost and Found became a top ten R&B hit and was Ledisi’s first to chart on the US mainstream as well. Ledisi’s first number one R&B album, Turn Me Lose, also become top twenty hit in 2009, and the album which followed, Pieces of Me, became her first album to reach into the top ten on both the R&B and mainstream charts.   

Since that time, Ledisi has been nominated for twelve Grammy Awards thus far, and she made her big screen acting debut in the 2014 film Selma, in the role of Mahalia Jackson. Notable singles from Ledisi include: “Pieces of Me,” “Stay Together,” “Bravo,” “I Blame You,” “Like this,” “Lose Control,” “High,” “Add to Me,” and “All The Way.” Ledisi recently wrapped a UK Tour in 2019, and launched a US tour alongside Gregory Porter in 2020.