Shady Blu is a master of atmosphere. Pairing gentle yet expressive vocals with nakedly vulnerable lyrics, the California singer/songwriter and rapper merges her pensive ruminations with lush ambient soundscapes to create infectious theme songs for the aspirational and the misunderstood. “I've dealt with doubt and people misunderstanding my point of view my whole life,” she says. “When my thoughts don't come out clearly through conversations, I'm able to fully express how I feel through music.”

“I've dealt with doubt and people misunderstanding my point of view my whole life,” she says. “When my thoughts don't come out clearly through conversations, I'm able to fully express how I feel through music.”

Blu’s struggle to communicate wasn’t for lack of trying. Growing up in Long Beach, California, she recalls being a “festive” child who loved planning parties with friends and playing basketball. Though she hadn’t yet conjured the idea of a music career, she remembers her mother playing the sounds of Earth, Wind & Fire and El DeBarge as she’d clean the house.

Around the end of 2016, Blu began experimenting with rap, with her first official recording session stemming from a dare. “I remember telling one of my homies I could rap, and he didn’t take me seriously,” she says. “Being doubted always fueled me.” With fresh motivation, she recorded some of her first rhymes through her phone. After hearing a sample, her friends invited her to their garage studio, and the song she put together ended up making the rounds among her friends.
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After some college and a stint as a medical assistant, Blu returned to music in 2020, searching through YouTube for beats before using her phone to record vocals over the tracks. While she was still inspired by the sounds of ’80s R&B, she’d now also absorbed the stylings of melodic experimenters like Erykah Badu and Rod Wave. Her first offering was “Dream$,” a semi-free-associative bop infused with melody and flashes of big dreams. After releasing two additional songs, she was searching for an audio engineer when she stumbled upon the Instagram account for Derek Ali—otherwise known as superstar engineer MixedByAli (known for his work with Kendrick Lamar, Nipsey Hussle, Schoolboy Q, and more). She sent him a DM with her music, then booked him to mix it through his platform EngineEars. He was taken by the sound of her voice, and then reached out to meet in person. He was impressed with her work ethic and the rest of her music that he heard, so by 2021, he signed her to his label NoName Recordings.

Now, Shady Blu looks to the future, which begins with her debut EP Topic Of Discussion. With bursts of hip-hop, R&B, and fluctuating feelings, the release is a showcase of her versatility. “I want to show I’ve got the range to vibe with anybody,” she says. As her crop of listeners grows, it won’t be long before people across the world hear her work, which will bring her attention she’s still not all that used to.

“When people are praising me for my music, I get a little shy,” Blu admits. “It's like they’reapplauding a piece of my heart.”