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Khea Emmanuel's soulful talent evolved in secret

Local News

Singer ready to showcase her songs

By JOHN LAW , REVIEW STAFF WRITER

From day one in high school, Khea Emmanuel felt like an outsider. She was tall. She had curly hair. Because she liked jazz, they called her weird. Most glaringly, she was black in an all-white school.

The teasing and snide comments started early. By grades 11 and 12, she was spending her lunches behind a computer, away from the taunting. She didn't fit in, so she wrote it all down.

Five years later, she commands the stage performing for the likes of Ann-Margret and Peter Fonda, channelling the ache of those teenaged years into a night of glorious jazz, soul and R&B.

"I think people had kind of labelled her, sad to say, and caused her to have an identity crisis," says Emmanuel's mom Lucia, a former model.

"I remember telling her that when you have a gift, it can be a lonely place."

At 23, Khea Emmanuel isn't a diva. She isn't arrogant or cocky. She knows the way to make up for her painful high school years is to share her talent, not to rub people's face in it.

"I'd like to touch a lot of people with my music," she says, before demurely admitting "I can't stand to sit there and talk about myself."

"The last thing I want to fall into is that narcissism. I don't want people to look at me like that."

It's easy to assume this is what she was meant to do: The daughter of Niagara Falls guitar great and Motown session man LeRoy Emmanuel (LMT Connection), the young Khea loved her music in private. She would steal her dad's CDs -- "They would just go missing" -- and silently soak them in: Sarah Vaughan, Prince, David Bowie. Marvin Gaye, whom her father worked closely with, was a huge inspiration.

The first time her mother heard her sing, she couldn't believe this soulful voice was coming out of her lonely, depressed teenager.

"She hid it from us until she was about 15," says Lucia. "I thought it was another artist, and my husband said, 'No, that's Khea.'"

"My dad was extremely influential for me," says Khea. "When he was on stage, I thought, 'Wow, he knows how to inspire people.'

"But at the time I was going through a lot of things at school. I was pretty much ostracized. I didn't fit in, basically, so I just went off and developed that personality to just ... hide.

"Then I evolved ... the only way to influence people like my father (does) would be to come out, take a chance and say something."

She poured it all into the haunting Know Thyself, the song that spawns a red carpet video release party Nov. 26 at the Bank Lounge on Main St.

A glitzy affair for an independent artist who doesn't even have a CD yet, but her mom and co-manager is pulling out all the stops.

" Niagara needs a wow factor," she says. "We need to put this place on the map."

Besides, her daughter deserves it. She realizes her life could have gone in a much more dark direction after high school.

"She shouldn't have gone through that, but you know what? Today we're thankful that she did. Because it's developed such a wonderful young lady."

Coming out party

WHO: Khea Emmanuel WHAT: Video Release Party WHERE: The Bank Lounge, 5890 Main Street

WHEN: Nov. 26, 7:30 p.m. TICKETS: $10 advance, $15 at the door. Phone 905-357-5207

jlaw@nfreview.com

Tune in to the 105.1 FM River morning radio show on Nov 12 2010 at 8:40 am, You will have a chance to win a pair of SOLD OUT V.I.P tickets and 1 of 5 pairs of G A tickets, plus get a sneak peak of Know Thyself!