Once upon a time there was a little girl called Nicolette born in Glasgow, Scotland. Her first language was Ibo, as her parents were Nigerian, and her mother taught her about reincarnation, reliving English literature,and the merits of singing fervently around the house. Her psychologist father did lots of psychology tests on her, taught her to play and perform an incredible variety of music, including space-music, and read literature to her incessantly. As a consequence, she was rather precocious and was reading at age three and writing (including poetry) at the age of four, in between stealing her father's art books and tearing out the pages she liked, she continued to write poetry and novels and musicals throughout her childhood. Nicolette also heard symphonies and angel choirs in her head from a very early age and thought this was normal (her brother experienced it too) until she observed that most other people did not report this experience. Talking of observing, she was always interested in what lay beneath the eye of consensus reality, "I was interested in what lies beneath the surface of things", said Nicolette later, "because that's where reality really is. And this is the crux of my work." She would read people's faces, and not their words, and so was always astonished when people would complain about being lied to - in her view people aren't really able to lie, even when they are speaking untruths; the truth being always blatant and simple. (And somewhat soothing). Anyway! Her father happily continued to make Nicolette and her siblings into a black family Von Trapp, and they would perform complex melodies and vocal harmonisations for friends and neighbours. This continued even when they moved to Nigeria when Nicolette was nine, where she met for the first time a huge extended family, including a beautiful and tall maternal grandmother who had been the first female senator in Nigeria, and a beautiful and tall paternal grandfather with four wives. She stopped singing (it wasn't cool!) as she grew into adolescent shyness, and as a teenager, decided to study French because there was no Russian available to study at the local uni. (she wanted to go to Russia at the time). She decided to become an academic like her parents, and steadfastly trying to ignore the deep and demanding urge to sing that was moving in the depths of her heart, continued to write poetry and novels with the aim of becoming a writer or poet, and she moved to Paris with this in mind (Gertrude Stein, Ferlinghetti, Hemingway, you get the picture...) where instead she became an artist's model. This was nice for her because it gave her a body ease she was never to lose again. But Nicolette couldn't ignore the urge to become a singer any longer, because after 2 years music grabbed her by the heart and flew her back to the UK, where she started to do cabaret (yes, cabaret!) with her sister in close vocal harmony, She formed a band with some friends too (called Calliope, go figure!) and they played gigs around Cardiff, and she practised her bright jazzy tones in restaurants and bars, doing Jazz standards for (very little) money. And she took voice lessons, and just sang and sang and sang... And dreamed of singing to the discordant and delirious new jazz, the electronic dance music she was hearing from (and dancing to on her visits to) London, but with breakbeats. And lo and behold, she must have had a secret genie, for her wish was answered in the form of Shut Up And Dance, London-based inventors of DrumnBass, who were looking for singer/songwriters... they auditioned her, and signed her, and so Nicolette had to move to London. Her first record was called "School Of The World/Single-Minded People" and she was sooooo excited when it came out! Because the club scene went mad for it! It was the yin/yang combination of Nicolette's extremely feminine and sensual voice with the hardcore driving backing tracks that did it, a combination Nicolette had been looking for all her life, for she'd secretly known that a combination of opposite extremes creates a strangely satisfying balance... Three popular singles later, Nicolette's first album came out: "Now is Early". A lush dream of an album that was the first act in Nicolette's musical journey: Life Is But A Dream. Nicoletteâs voice was creating a stir. She wasn't sure why. When she listened to herself on records, it just sounded to her like her talking. But while she was actually singing, she understood the energy that people could feel in her voice, because she would be filled with a beautiful delirious joy that rushed up and down her skin. And it still happens today. Anyway! Nicolette left Shut Up And Dance, because she'd done all she needed to do there. While she was trying to find her new sound, Bristol group Massive Attack asked her if she wanted to sing and co-write with them. It sounded like an irresistible offer, so Nicolette said yes. She did two songs on their "Protection" album. It was different from anything she'd done before, and that satisfied her soul. The listening public, they were satisfied too, so no-one was unhappy. And then Nicolette met Gilles Peterson who signed her to his label Talkin Loud, a label with lots of artistic freedom and shiny musicians. It felt like home for a while, and Nicolette put out two singles and an album called "Let No-One Live RentFree In Your Head" there. Lots of people liked them, and as usual the critics did too, which Nicolette found odd but fine. Time for Nicolette to leave Talkin Loud, as the second act of her musical journey, "So Take Control Of Your Dream", was over. So off she went, skipping along, to find a new direction, and on her way she did a DJ mix album Nicolette-DJ Kicks, with German label !K7. To her surprise, people started offering her lots of DJ work after this, so she tried DJing and found that she loved it sincerely, so she still does it. But what about some new Nicolettemusic? Well, so, Nicolette started her own label, Early Records. To create a space where artists like her could play comfortably and gain some exposure and flip-flop and fly... and it took her a while to set it all up and also she kept writing and writing music... until she had a new album four years later! Which brings us to the present day: "Life Loves Us", Nicolette's current album. "Life Loves Us" flavour: heartfulquirkybeatfulslinkysensualdanceyfreshfunprofoundhyper-real "Life Loves Us" effects: uplifting, heart-rending, perspective-changing... And now that Nicolette has expressed her current journey chapter in music, she invites everyone in. This chapter is called: Because This Is Now.