Freehold, NJ · alt-r&b · alt-rock · soul

Fousheé

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A honeyed voice pointed at grunge guitars and glitching drums — started as a sampled hook and turned into one of the least predictable writers in alt-R&B.

Fousheé's mother played drums in PEP, an all-woman reggae band from Jamaica in the 1980s, and Fousheé wrote her first song at age five. She grew up in New Jersey, attended Bridgewater-Raritan High School, and studied voice, classical music, guitar and piano alongside groups formed with childhood friends.

She spent years writing and doing session work before an unexpected break: a vocal she had uploaded to a sample library was used by Sleepy Hallow on 'Deep End Freestyle', which prompted her to release her own version of the song in 2020. Her version reached the top ten of Billboard's Alternative Airplay chart, making her the first Black woman to do so since Tracy Chapman in 1989.

Before that breakthrough, Fousheé released the EP Speak Up in 2018 and competed on the fifteenth season of The Voice, reaching the battle rounds under coach Adam Levine. She moved to Los Angeles in 2019 and signed to RCA Records the following year.

Her records have moved steadily away from the smooth alt-R&B she was first associated with. The 2021 project time machine kept a light, folk-tinged touch, while 2022's softCORE pushed into distorted guitars, screamed passages and abrasive drum programming.

She has also worked widely as a guest vocalist, co-writing and singing backing vocals on Steve Lacy's singles 'Sunshine' and 'Bad Habit', the latter a number one hit, and appearing on records by Vince Staples, James Blake, Lil Wayne, Lil Yachty and Ravyn Lenae.

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