For performer V. Bozeman, the course was set before she was even old enough to understand there was a course.

“I can’t remember a time when I didn’t think of myself as a singer,” V. says. “As young as I (can) remember, I was singing. It’s just something that’s lived inside of me since I was born.”

V.’s early love of music began on Sundays at church in South Central Los Angeles, where the gospel choir served as a platform for her musical gifts—and their influence is felt in her music still today. It was here, in the choir, where she first understood the power of music to transcend differences and create a common ground, often rooted in the most primal human emotions.

“We used to go to Europe in the summertime, and we would sing gospel songs—really down-home gospel songs—in French. They had never heard an aesthetic like this before, but it would touch them just the same as it would touch the people in the front row pews at my church,” V. says. “That’s when I knew that music has no boundaries. You can’t put music in a box; it’s an energy.”

The first time V. heard her own professionally recorded and mixed track played back to her – shocked, and realizing that’s me – that was the moment that solidified V.’s sense of certainty in her life’s mission. She heard the power of her sound and knew it could help people connect with something meaningful.

“Music chose me,” V. says. “When something chooses you, and it’s that strong inside, you just can’t run away from it. You have to kind of submit to it, and that’s kept me afloat and kept me grounded.”

That total sense of rightness in knowing that she is doing exactly what she is meant to do has allowed V. the freedom to let her exhilaration guide her craft. Call it an artist’s intuition.

“I have to feel magical when I do music. When you do music, it’s supposed to move the atmosphere. It’s a live energy,” says V. “So every time I do music, I just have to be totally connected to it—and if I’m not, I’m just not going to do it.

To tap into that live energy, V. looks to the

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