“If I cannot have my cake and eat it to, then I do not want the cake,” says Vondecarlo Brown regarding her journey to reach her full potential as an artist.
Taking soul music a step further and giving it a unique edge, Vondecarlo’s mellifluous sound has been compared to a wide range of female artist from Bjork and Sade, to Amy Winehouse and Kelis. But if you ask her to describe the music off of her upcoming debut album HONEST RIGHTEOUSNESS, NOT AS PRETTY AS I USED TO BE, she will simply say, “I don’t know how to box it into any specific genre really, so I will let you decide that. I will say, however, it is unique.”
Vondecarlo, a New York based independent artist, was born in the 70’s and raised in the 80’s in a small steel town projects outside of Pittsburgh, PA. Once in New York City, she landed the very first audition she attended. Shortly thereafter, she found herself in Belize shooting for FOX TV’s new hit Reality Show, Temptation Island. She was voted off the show in the first episode by the other female cast members for being the most “intimidating single female”. She received no notoriety for her appearance on the show, which in her words was a blessing. “It forced me to concentrate less on becoming famous, and more on becoming a great artist”. She pressed on, landing small roles in One Life To Live and many other stage plays and indie films over the next few years. It wasn’t until she began writing her own one-woman show that she tapped into her skills as a songwriter. “That is when it all came back to me, and I realized that acting was not my only purpose in New York”.
“I grew up rough, and music was always my escape. I used to lay on the floor by the speakers and put my ears as close to them as possible with my eyes closed and just listen to whatever my favorite song was at the time over and over. Each time I listened, I would try and capture different elements of the song, and figure out why I loved that particular song so much. First I would listen to just the voice, then just to the lyrics, then just to the instruments and sounds they were using. Subconsciously, I think my intention was to separate and analyze each sound in my mind in hopes to understand why it affected me the way it did emotionally. I suppose that was the early producer in me, because when I produce and write music now, that’s pretty much what I do.”
“I piece songs together with sounds I develop that come to me randomly in my head; sometimes even in dreams. Then I build the track little by little concentrating on each little sound, and how that sound affects the way I feel when I hear it or sing to it. Sometimes it becomes a mess or sometimes it becomes a song; or sometimes it becomes a mess that becomes a song later. What I’ve learned in my growth as a musician, producer, and singer, is that when you are open to being honest with yourself and not fearful of making a mistake or sounding silly, then that is when the magic happens.”
With influences from all genres of music including Hip Hop, R&B, Gospel, Acoustic, Soul, Rock, and Pop, it makes it difficult to categorize her sound. Her favorite artists range from Gladys Knight, Otis Redding, Sade, and Donny Hathaway to Whitney Houston, Brandy, Sharon Jones & the Dap Kings, John Mayer, Lauren Hill, Erykah Badu, Kurt Cobain, Antonique Smith, Amy Winehouse, Alicia Keys, and Kanye West (with many more in between).
Simply said, whether or not you like her style, her voice, or her music in general is inconsequential to her. “My motive and intention on this project is to tell a story and take the listener on a journey through my soul” she says. “Every track on this album is a real feeling and/or real story from my life made into a song. Actually, anything that consumes my mind eventually becomes a song. That is how it works for me. That’s how I feel I communicate best. I feel misunderstood mostly when I just talk to people with words. “Music is what feelings sound like” is one of my favorite quotes, and that is what my album project is, nothing more, nothing less.”
She is married to Comedian Patrice O’Neal, and says that her title track HONEST RIGHTEOUSNESS is about him. Laughing, she says that he calls it the “stalker song”. The very first song she ever wrote is also included in the album. It is titled YOU SAVED ME, and it is a song she wrote about her daughter. The other side of her album title, NOT AS PRETTY AS I USED TO BE, is a song she wrote about her own self image, and the scar she obtained from having a tummy tuck to remove the unsightly loose skin and stretch marks after her pregnancy. “I felt that writing a song about it wasn’t enough. I wanted to show people what I was feeling as well, so the best place for that, I felt, was my album cover. I decided to reveal my scar on my album cover (and throughout my digital booklet), which was very scary, but also very freeing. I’ve been insecure about it and hiding it for years, and this album in so many ways (both mentally and physically) is helping me to let go of all of my fears and accept myself for who I am”.
“I’m sure I will be compared to other artists and my talent as a singer/songwriter/producer will be reviewed and judged by people, but I am prepared for that. I made a promise to myself not to get caught up in good or bad reviews. I have tunnel vision of myself because once you start comparing yourself to others, or listening too much to their opinions, its all down hill from there. To me, beauty is in the eye of the beholder, so with that being said, the good news is, I will never be as bad as they say. The bad news is, I will never be as good as they say either. Hype is hype either way, so I look within for my own justification. My only hope is that people will listen to my journey with an open heart, and enjoy the Honest Righteousness that I gave 100% effort in delivering. I feel like I have so much to share through my music, and it would be a blessing to have it be well received”.
She also wrote and produced the theme music COOL RIDE for The Patrice O’Neal One Hour Comedy Central Special, ELEPHANT IN THE ROOM, which premiered on Comedy Central February 19, 2011, and climbed to number one on the stand up comedy DVD charts a few short days later.