Kristin Hosein

This profile was edited with MySpace Help - Profile Creator and Editor MySpace Profile Help!Born in Leeds to a West Indian father and English mother, Kristin's musical journey so far has not been stereotypical to say the least. Raised for the first 8 years in Trinidad and Tobago she comes from a non-musical family. Consequently the idea of 'starting young' on a musical instrument wasn't an obvious one, so it was lucky for her that a music-loving mother would regularly get cassette tapes posted over from the UK and America. On a diet of mainly Motown, soul and pop, with early Whitney records leaving a particularly strong impression, the love affair with singing and performing in public began - the first of these occasions being in the airport departure lounge (singing along with the music coming over the tannoy) whilst waiting for a flight back to London, aged 5. Returning to Leeds in 1988 and excelling in her academic studies, the fear of not having a 'real' job overshadowed any designs on a career in music, despite comments from teachers about a 'natural vocal gift' as well as the ability to watch her best friend at the time play Grade 8 pieces on the piano and then sit down and replicate parts by 'ear'. Frustratingly, private lessons had never been in the budget and it was only after much protesting that she received voice lessons, between the ages of 13 and 15. A year as principal vocalist with the Leeds Youth Jazz-Rock Orchestra came as a result of this -along with a taste for performing live with other musicians. Receiving a Choral Scholarship from Cambridge was probably the nearest to musical formality that she ventured, beating fierce competition from classically-trained singers with an operatic performance in German. Opting eventually to study at Edinburgh however, it would be a few more years of singing on-and-off in soul covers bands and a 1st class Honours degree in Geology before she would be brave enough to admit defeat...Singing was always going to win through and the desire to have no regrets from that point on was overwhelming. To change direction after such commitment to something else only serves to strengthen the seriousness of her decision and the intent to carve out a career in music. After university, she spent a year at the Academy of Contemporary Music in Surrey, which saw her first foray into songwriting. "I realised that just being able to sing sometimes isn't enough and also that if all of my life's experiences so far have been for a common reason, then that was to put them into songs. I'd spent too long just thinking about them." The resulting first song 'Inner You' proved good enough to get the attention of a producer and led to the recording of further material at studios in London and Norway. Not put off by not knowing any of the rules of playing or writing, the natural result is a blend of soul and jazz that has a timeless quality - "real songs that you can really sing". These come from a place that isn't afraid to be laid bare and are represented by a powerful voice with inherent soulfulness and emotion that is always pushing its boundaries. "I don't like to stay in any kind of comfort zone with my music - if I had, i'd be a Geologist"