TAELA

From a young age, TAELA knew she wanted to pursue music. Growing up with a difficult home life, the Missouri native says she witnessed the power of music firsthand at five. The singer vividly remembers how listening to a Joss Stone record transformed her mother.

“​​Every time she listened to it, everything would disappear,” TAELA recalls. “She would start smiling again. I clocked, ‘This woman who’s singing is healing my mom. This is the only time I see her happy, and for some reason, this music is doing this for her.’ I realized then that’s what I wanted to do for people.”

TAELA began listening to Stone as a coping mechanism herself. The up-and-coming country singer-songwriter says she was always passionate about how music heals people.

By the time she was 8, TAELA was writing stories, books, and poetry on a typewriter her mother bought from a thrift store. Soon, she was coming up with song concepts, melodies, and choruses. Homeschooled, TAELA sparked a friendship with her 70-year-old neighbor Murray. He’d pay her to watch his dog, help around the house, and do yard work. All the while, he’d remind TAELA that she was never alone.

When Murray was diagnosed with cancer, TAELA wrote her first complete song for her friend and mentor. Titled “You’re Not Alone,” TAELA performed the song for Murray the day before he died. In that moment, TAELA says she felt the energy in the room shift and she realized how important it was to write about “real things.”

“That was another one of those pivotal moments for me,” she says. “I was like, ‘Okay, this is what I need to do. I need to write about real things, and I want to save people through music and heal people through music.’” Read more here