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Brooklyn’s a creative place and singer/songwriter Cocoa Sarai is BK’s newest budding star. Performing since the age of three Cocoa’s fully dedicated to singing, whether it is the business or creative side of her career. Singing has always been a part of her life with her family beside her every endeavor. However, she lost her biggest supporter of all, her mother ,last November but she continues to find strength from her mother’s spirit pushing as she continues to navigate the music industry.

Explore Cocoa Sarai’s Hometown

“The loss of my mother has pushed me to make sure that the part of my business of my career is good especially if I want to do this for the rest of my life. Creatively I know how to record myself now, write songs so now it’s just the business of it all.”

Her debut CD, Half Past 7, is her crowning achievement and TheUrbandaily.com caught up with this artist on the rise to find out more about how her brand of pop soul.

TheUrbandaily: When did you start singing?

Cocoa Sarai: My mom says two but I remember singing since the age of 3 because I have a video of me singing at that age. Professionally, I’d say I started at the of fifteen singing in clubs outside of church and singing my own music.

How was it singing outside of Church?

Outside of church I always sang in school, in middle school, I sang R&B in school so it was always a balance of both worlds. My mother was always okay with that but my grandmother was like ‘Do Gospel’ and my mother was like ‘Do what you want.’

What’s the meaning behind your name?

Well, my middle name is Sarai and all my life my mother called me Chocolate and when it was time to pick a stage name, she asked “Why not Chocolate?” I had to break it down to mom that would not work because it’s a stripper name. But one time my engineer asked me to make it ‘Cocoa Sarai’ and I hated it but two months later this label that I was working with put a song on iTunes as Cocoa Sarai and I stuck with it.

When did you know you had talent?

All my life I grew up around singing and I have a singing family and they’re very honest and from a little girl I was always told that I had ‘it.’ I never felt like I wasn’t talented because no ever told me I was bad but when it comes to my talent in songwriting that came later on when I was about 16.

What did you write about for your first song?

It was about somebody cheating and I got the concept from the movie, it was hilarious. I don’t remember the movie it was from but it was called “Watch me Move On.” The song was dope but [Laughs] it’s so funny to look back at myself back then. I always had a soulful voice but i wrote these topics at -I was 13, what you know about this?! [Laughs]

What was it like when you wrote it?

It was funny because I didn’t know what a song structure was, like what it was called for a hook, for a bridge, for a b-section. But I did it correctly, when the music changed I was supposed to change it and when certain music came back, I was suppose to bring it back. So I literally wrote the proper verse-hook-bridge for the record. Once I sang it for my uncle, he told me I was right and I learned how to count bars later.

So you never read the CD booklets with the lyrics? I remember reading Brandy’s Never Say Never and I would see “bridge” “hook” or “verse.”

Yeah, I read it but when you’re creating it you don’t know what’s it going to be. Even the music now, you can decide I’m gonna do a pre-vamp or a post-hook instead of going directly into the second verse and that will throw it off.

Did you start studying song structure later on?

I never studied. I learned how to count bars then I figured out what I can do. I’d be like ‘okay, this is 8 bars, this is 12bars, this is 4bars,’ so I could count where the bars are offbeat. When I wrote my first song it was directly to the studio. I learned super-duper fast because I already knew what I was doing, I just couldn’t put a name to it.

What about the videos you’ve done, which is your favorite?

I’ve only done two of my own and only one out of the two was officially released. The first video I have was so creative, we had black lights, dancers, a green screen and there were a lot of camera tricks. I loved it. The second one won’t be coming out because I don’t like what the videographer did with it.

I watched it, the one where you wore neon lipstick?

It was paint, well, black light paint anyway. It’s funny because that same make-up artist, 3 years later, wanted to do my makeup for the album cover, “The Black and White.” She’s actually created her own patent of backlight lip-gloss, so that’s what I have on in my album cover. It’s called “Lip Lighters” by Linda Nicole.

So were you a part of planning the video treatment for that video?

I was a part of all of that, everything, I brought the paint! My make-up artist, my director and myself, we came up with everything.

When was your “Big Break?”

The biggest thing for me was performing at MSG last year and the screams that the audience made after I hit this high note.  But singing the National Anthem in MSG while it was packed did not hit me until I got to the skybox and I really saw how many people were in the Garden.

Which game was that?

It was the Knicks verses the Clippers at that time. And I remember my manager at the time, my uncle wanted me to do it and they put a word in for me to do it to somebody. My manager closed the deal and she hit me back like ‘hey, here’s the date you have to come in and make it’ and she also told me I had to sing and that was it. I sang “The National Anthem” acapella and then I sent them the audio and they hit me back and said that they liked it.

So it was like sending in an audition tape?

No, not really cause I knew they wanted me. But the person who knew my manager had to give it to her director. So they wanted to hear how I sound when I sang.

Was it nerve-wracking?

No, I knew I could sing the song. I used to sing the song every morning on the intercom for the whole school when I was in the seventh and eighth grade.

At this point, I don’t get nervous about sounding bad, it’s just like walking. You don’t get nervous about walking from you house to the store. You might get nervous if you’ve never walked in heels before, then you might get nervous to walk to your house to the store. [Laughs] But I don’t get nervous about that with singing.

What gets you nervous at this point?

I get nervous about some stupid stuff like falling off the stage or having a wardrobe malfunction. Or if I have a running nose, I’m on stage saying ‘please don’t let snot come out of my nose;’ these are the things I worry about. Or tripping over a rope or the sound guy not paying attention and not giving me what I am asking him, besides that I never get nervous.

How about performing at various venues where you’re not to sound check?

If I don’t get to do sound check I’m just annoyed that I didn’t get to do sound check and that’s unfair to any artist because you’re not prepared, especially if you have a band. And performing by myself I’m very good at easing through [a performance without sound check] because I’ve been performing for so long. But if there is no sound check, I’m pissed, absolutely.

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