can i get a refill can i get a refill
it was probably already in the cards from birth that elle varner would make music
her life after all she was born into a musical family and had a front row seat to witness her
parents journey to make a name for themselves in the industry she took her time and completed
steps that many other artists tend to skip she learned how to play several different instruments
attended music programs and focused on honing her skills over many years then after a well-received
debut album she would be forced to deal with numerous struggles and setbacks before finally
being able to release her next project let's find out whatever happened to american r b
singer-songwriter elle varner los angeles native gabrielle serene varner came into the world on
february 12 1989 to a cape verdean mother and a half swedish half black father her home was
high on creativity and low on rules since both of her parents were singers songwriters and musicians
elle actually spent most of her childhood sleeping on studio couches
and running around green rooms while watching them strive for success in the music business
it was important for her to see them fight so hard for their dream and not only the glitz
and glamour side of the industry it gave her a great blueprint for what to do and what not to do
at age six her grandfather bought her a flute she played it in her elementary school band and
that gave her the ear for notes and sparked her interest to learn how to play other instruments
such as the piano and guitar and eventually bass and drums she also grew up singing in the baptist
church she and her family attended even though elle did take her time honing her skills her
talent and confidence in her abilities was obvious working in the studio at around 11 or 12 became
a positive outlet for her when she was getting bullied or ignored at school at age 13 she wrote
her very first song after telling her father that the song he was working on with one of his artists
quote sucked she told him she could do a much better job even though she had never even
attempted to write a song before so her father left her in the studio with the engineer and an
hour and a half later she had written and recorded background vocals included her very first song
she went on to attend new york university's clive davis institute of recorded music and it was here
that gabrielle became l on a trip through ikea one day she heard a woman call her daughter elle
who she revealed had the same birth name gabrielle elle wasn't a fan of the typical shortened version
of her name gabby so she went with l after graduating she decided to go the mixtape route
and came out with conversational lush just before her debut album titled perfectly imperfect was
released in the summer of 2012. the lead single only want to give it to you was a minor hit
however it was the follow-up refill which got her a grammy nomination for best r b song that
made everyone really take notice she describes the album as a real fusion of hip-hop and soul soulful
vocals mixed with hip-hop beats elle didn't waste any time getting to work on her follow-up effort
which began in 2013. however the process to bring this project to the masses would be far different
from any other experience she'd ever had that same year she went public with her relationship with
professional basketball player iman shumpert she gushed to hiphollywood.com about him saying he's
awesome we've been friends for such a long time of all the guys that i've met throughout being in
the limelight he's the only guy that really stuck it out and built a friendship with me
and it meant a lot so we're happy i'm glad i'm not hiding it anymore it was a lot of work
sadly their relationship would end just a few months after her grand declaration
but on the plus side the breakup no doubt provided some great material for future projects
the album that she described as passionate honest intense and expressive wasn't meant
to be after dropping a couple of singles and dealing with several years of pushbacks the
album titled four-letter word was eventually shelved and she was subsequently dropped from
rca records in later interviews elle does the most to dodge the questions about her departure
whatever really happened must have been major since there was and still is an article from march
2014 totally hyping up her new album coming out later that year on the label's website
2014 would also mark the year she would have her first celebrity beef experience
with former friend r b singer k michelle she accused elle of stealing her vocal style
since they were friends it's not unusual that they would talk about the projects they were
each working on one day elle played a song called cold case and while listening to it k michelle
immediately noticed that it had a very similar style to a song that she had played for elle
some time ago a major contributing factor was probably the fact that l used the same producers
during an interview with new york's premier hip-hop radio station hot 97 k michelle said
she directly asked her to not put out the song unfortunately the next thing she knows the
song does get released another underlying issue that probably encouraged k michelle
to publicly blast l about the song was the relationship each woman had with rapper
meek mill k michelle admitted in the same interview that she did have a crush on me
and she was hurt by elle posting pics with herself and him as she perceived it as somewhat of a taunt
l won her first grammy in 2017 for her work on chance the rapper's mixtape
coloring book two years later her sophomore album titled elevation finally dropped
the title reflects on her journey to overcoming the many difficulties that she experienced
in her life over the past several years executive produced by l the album features collabs by singer
stacey barth and rappers rhapsody and wale she revealed that she went through numerous
changes over many years label changes industry changes friend changes and relationship changes
it all affected her so much that she originally began pouring her heart out in the songs that
were slated to appear on her shelves second album ultimately she ended up being glad the
album never came out since she didn't want her second album to be full of so much pain and anger
to bring herself out of that dark place elle sought out therapy and went to church a lot
during her hiatus she also made some major boss lady moves she started her own record label and
now owns her masters she spoke to philadelphia's hip-hop and r b radio station power 99 about the
importance of learning about and participating in this side of the music business saying
on one hand it's so fun to just be an artist
then you look up one day and you're like what they took my what we've heard this story a million
times so at a certain point you're either gonna keep living like that or you say you know what
i'm gonna go to the meeting or i'm gonna read the contract even if this is not my
favorite thing to do life is not about doing everything that you wanna do all the time
during the covet 19 pandemic in 2020 elle has done several live online concerts for
her fans on instagram on june 16th she made a post announcing the release of a new song on soundcloud
aptly titled crazy wild with the caption
with all the tragic events happening in the world right now i wanted to contribute
something to uplift people's spirits with one of the best medicines there is music
this is my first baby i wrote played and produced 100
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