Brown on Spotlight: Anjulie Persaud

by Shivangi Ramachandran - University of Oregon

Only a fellow brown girl knows how hard it is to make it. And by make it, I mean, strip ourselves away from the tensions and insecurities that arise from being immigrants, and turn it one of our biggest strengths.

An emerging and supremely talented young artist, Anjulie Persaud (This isn’t official, but it sounds like a variation of “Anjali Prasad”) is slowly making her way onto the music scene. The Canadian singer’s parents who are of Indian descent were originally from Guyana, who then moved to Canada. Talking about turning her weakness into strength – our spotlight brown girl who is slowly “making it” got her first break in the music industry right after being fired from her job at a record studio. Uh.. what?!

She’s got a unique voice for sure – frank lyrics, and deep, catchy melodies that makes you pay attention. If listened to carefully, the lyrics can unravel a very introspective, smart woman. “I think I have something to say lyrically” she writes on her website (www.anjuliemusic.com) “My background is in songwriting, so I’m really invested in melodies, song structure and payoff choruses, but on this record, I tried to loosen up and just express myself how I wanted to. I really write for myself.” And her self-titled debut album suggests, she really does.

On my first look, she reminded me of Amy WInehouse, on my second, Nelly Furtado, on my third a little bit of Lauryn Hill. That makes sense because she has been influenced by an  array of different artists – from Alanis Morisette to Annie Lennox to Kanye West, and it shows in how different and eclectic her music really is. People across the world, are starting to really dig her music, and so we might just be looking at the Next Music Sensation. Her debut album reached Number 2 on Billboard’s Heatseeker Albums and number 108 on the Billboard 200 Albums chart. The single ‘Boom’ reached Number one  the US Dance Charts.

Here’s a brown girl to watch out for and take inspiration from, and hopefully, one day she will be big enough for us to tell everyone that we knew about her first!

Check her music at www.myspace.com/anjulie