Terri Walker doesn't do mediocre — and she'll tell you so to your face.
Two decades on from her critically acclaimed 2003 debut Untitled, released via Def Soul/Mercury, the singer-songwriter joins Iyare Igiehon on SOUL Cast for a conversation about what it actually takes to sustain a voice in this industry — not the highlight reel, the mechanics.
She talks about growing up in Germany from the age of four with a Jamaican mother who wrote \"RUBBISH\" in capital letters on CDs she didn't rate. About discovering Phyllis Nelson, then Whitney, then Lauryn Hill, and watching Sister Act 2 three times back to back in a German cinema. About singing \"I Will Always Love You\" a cappella at her father's funeral at 18, in a room of thousands, and being spotted there by the manager who'd start her career.
She's candid about the major label years: the deal she never chased, the second-album pressure to chase Jamelia and Beyoncé, the Cutfather & Joe session, and the video that derailed her momentum. And she sets the record straight on the story everyone thinks they know — she was never dropped. She asked to be let go.
Then there's now: My Love Story, produced by Children of Zeus, released on her own label Wings of a Hummingbird, straight to number one on iTunes, remixed end-to-end by Zed Bias. She's signing artists, planning a festival, and refusing to play a show until the money's right.
Her advice to anyone coming up in the age of AI? Retreat into who you are. The machine can't imitate what you haven't done yet.
SOUL Cast is edited by Nuru Mkali
Recorded at Run VT
Music By Christian Jermane
With thanks to Mariam Adamson
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