Singer/songwriter Angelique Sabrina comes to us straight from the Bahamas and at just 14 years old she is well beyond her years in terms of confidence and experience. J-14 recently caught up with her when she was in the U.S. to talk about her unique island sound and her catchy new singles, "Pull Up" and "Stop Sign."
J14: In your video for "Pull Up" there's a lot of dancing. How did you learn how to dance and did you help choreograph?
Angelique: As a kid I was always in and out of dance classes and I also watch dancers very carefully. If I like a dancer, I'll go on YouTube and watch a video of them dancing. I co-choreographed [the "Pull Up" video] with another choreographer in the Bahamas.
J14: How would you describe your sound?
Angelique: My sound is very island. It's pop, its urban. It has all of the flavors in it, because I'm an island girl. We put all of my flavors inside of it and pull from other influences of mine and people that I look up too as well like Michael Jackson, Frank Ocean, Tony Bennett, Nat King Cole and James Brown.
J-14: Tell us about the first time you performed in front of a crowd.
Angelique: That was when I entered myself in a talent competition [at school] and I wrote my own song. I was by my grandmother's [house] when I was eight and this little melody came into my head. I liked it a lot so I put words to it. I wrote it about my friend and I sang it for my mom and my dad and they're like "Oh, this is what you're performing." At first I was going to do a Hannah Montana song. I had my dance and everything and they're like "No, no, no, this is what you're doing, I like this." So that's what I sang and I [played] a little piano as well.
J-14: Do you play any other instruments?
Angelique: I've played so many instruments, but I put them all down. I played piano, guitar, flute, drums. I've experimented with a lot.
J-14: What's one thing you want our readers to know about you?
Angelique: If they've listened to "Pull Up" I want them to expect the unexpected, because "Pull Up" isn't the depth of the album. It's not everything we're working on. Don't expect that one sound from every song, it's going to be very different.
Check out Angelique Sabrina's video for "Pull Up" below: