By Caroline Watling
“I get it now when people say haters are my motivators,” shares 24 year old Markham based singer Miss B.
The sassy vocalist with a smooth voice has always wanted to be a singer. Her first ever memory was singing a Shania Twain song for her family, and her love of music has only grown from there. While she never had an aha I’m going to be a musician moment, the point of no return was her first time workshopping an original piece, and collaborating on it with a friend who found her a performance opportunity. From there, the shows kept coming.
But Miss B isn’t only about live performance opportunities, she has a huge online presence that has captivated listeners all over the world, including a unique market in India, where multiple songs of hers have been featured on the radio. But being on the radio wasn’t enough, Miss B wanted to target new audiences, so she tried a different tactic.
“The first time I saw Jessie Reyez was a promo on Facebook, so I thought why not try it.”
From one Facebook video, Miss B has gained millions of views, and hundreds of followers, with her channels gathering more attention every day.
“Even at the very beginning I was like wow I didn’t expect this many people to be watching it. At the beginning you see the views in smaller numbers, so each 10 000 views I was like wow that’s a lot, and then I started getting hundreds of thousands and the views were counted in these bigger increments. It’s kind of overwhelming, but very exciting at the same time.”
With all the buzz, Miss B is excited to be releasing her first full album October 4th. The album is going to be a mix of originals and covers, featuring lots of pop, a hip hop track, a ballad, and covers of Kehlani, Billie Eilish, Jessie Reyez, plus way more.
Miss B listens to almost everything including Kpop, heavy metal, indie, but mostly R&B. One artist she loves is Jessie Reyez.
“Reyez sings about real stuff, her lyrics get me so emotional, she is so in my feelings. When I listen to her lyrics I feel like I’m really connected with her, and she knows exactly what I’m going through. It’s better when you feel you have a genuine connection to the artist, even though you’ve never met them.”
But she’s not all about mainstream artists, Miss B is amazed by underground artists she comes across on spotify playlists, they have so many different sounds and unique styles, inspiring the music she makes. Miss B’s writing methodology builds on current artists that she digs the sound of.
“I look up the artists I like, see what producers are making the beats they’re working with, then pull up a beat [of theirs] from Youtube. I try to freestyle a melody, or even some lyrics on top of that. Writing a song can either be extremely short, or take a whole year to write. It really depends on what I’m going for, what I’m feeling in the moment, and how intense I feel in the moment. I find it’s easier to write when you’re really in tune with your emotion. If it’s just a passing feeling I’m not gonna feel the song as much as I want to. If that’s the case I’ll usually put it aside and come back to it. I’ll listen to old voice notes I’ve made about the song, and something new might come up, days even months later.”
When asked on advice for other aspiring artists, Miss B says: “Don’t listen to anyone else. Do what you want. The amount of times I chose to listen to other peoples advice it rarely helped me out. There are some people who have steered me in the right direction, but there’s so many people that say don’t sing like this, sing like that, don’t sing this, sing that, but it doesn’t matter. Do what you want, do what you like, do what feels right, and just go for it. You have nothing to lose. And save money, save lots of money. I wish someone told me that earlier.”
Where can you see Miss B? Check out her sensational singing in our ArtistUnplugged series.
