Tori Kelly
Tori Kelly
Victoria Loren "Tori" Kellyis an American singer, songwriter and record producer who slowly gained recognition after starting to post videos on YouTube at the age of 14. When she was 16, Kelly auditioned for the singing competition television series American Idol. After being eliminated from the show, Kelly began to work on her own music. In 2012, she independently released her first EP that she produced, wrote, and mixed herself, titled Handmade Songs By Tori Kelly. The following year, Scooter...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionPop Singer
Date of Birth14 December 1992
CityWildomar, CA
CountryUnited States of America
Nineties hip-hop was a big influence for me; it still is. I love '90s everything. And it's when I was born, too. I'm a '90s kid for sure.
I'm so thrilled to be partnering up with William Rast. I'm such a fan of the brand and being a part of the new campaign has been amazing.
I started writing music when I was 15 in my bedroom, and I'd post them on MySpace, and from there it shifted to doing covers on YouTube and building my Twitter.
I use this brand called Ouidad; they're great. Not Your Mother's is another one. Garnier Fructis. I use a bunch of stuff. Literally, I just throw a huge concoction of stuff in my hair after I get out of the shower, and then I diffuse it.
One of the most important things to me as a songwriter is to make music that's young and fresh but also soulful and real. I want people to feel like they know me once they listen to my songs.
I think in 2016 I'm going to focus on performing a lot more and doing as many shows as I can. There's plans to tour more, and that's where my heart is - doing the live shows.
My faith is a huge part of my life. I don't force it into my music, but it's in my experiences, so it comes through. People pick up on what they want to pick up on, but any way strangers connect to a song that I wrote is awesome.
I've never seen myself as a pop singer. I grew up listening to gospel, soul and rock. My approach to pop is that, when I was doing my album, I wanted to have raw, genuine lyrics, but wanted it to be easy to process.
My first competition, I guess, singing-wise, I was six years old, and there's a video of it, too. I'm just, like, stick straight. I'm not moving at all, and I'm just singing.
I would like to be somebody young people, young girls, can look up to.
My style is understated because everything I wear, I want it to have an effortless feel to it. I always want to be comfortable in my clothes and feel like myself, but I like to usually throw in some edge in there somewhere, even just with a leather jacket. But overall, always gotta keep it classy!
Gospel was the root of everything in my house, so there's a touch of that in everything that I do. If soul counts as a genre, I would also say that's the common thread throughout everything I do. There's rock and soul influence, too. The pop element comes at the very end and making the song catchy so people will remember it.
I think with my journey so far, it never felt like an overwhelming, overnight success story. I think that's good for me because I really got to take my time.
'American Idol' was fun; it was definitely an experience. I was 16 years old when I did it, and I was curious about how I would do on the show.