Ledisi Biography
Ledisi Young (her given name
meaning "to bring forth" in Nigerian) was born in the Big Easy, where
she sang with the New Orleans Symphony Orchestra when she was eight years old
and spent many adolescent hours watching her mother perform with a local
R&B band, often in a nearby park. After the family relocated to Oakland, CA,
Ledisi followed her mother's lead and sang in a local band, but left to form
her own group and identity. She became widely noted for her performances in
Beach Blanket Babylon, a long-running San Francisco -based cabaret featuring
song parodies, celebrity impersonations, and enormous hats; she got the gig
after being nominated for a Shellie Award in 1990 for her role as Dorothy in a
local version of The Wiz.
