R&B singer Sevyn Streeter is ready for her moment. The girl from tiny Haines City, Fla., has taken the long way to fame; from stints in girl groups TG4 and RichGirl, to a stint at Jive Records that didn’t go as expected. But Sevyn is experiencing the rewards that come with perseverance. Now signed to Atlantic Records, she’s set to release her debut EP Call Me Crazy, But … and she wants fans to know that everything she’s gone through is filtered into her music.
“With this project, [the fans] can learn that Sevyn goes through the same things that they go through,” she explains. “The whole EP is the cycle of a relationship and based on things that I’ve gone through and things that my friends go through.”
Streeter’s secret weapon is her sincerity. And her songwriting has reflected that ability to channel her experiences into her art. She’s written for Fantasia, Ariana Grande, Tamar Braxton, Estelle and numerous others. But it was her association with Chris Brown that finally put her career on the fast track. She was featured on Brown’s 2012 album Fortune and is an artist under his CBE imprint. And while many would have given up after so many false starts, Streeter says that this is all that she has ever seen herself doing. So she had to continue to fight for her dream, no matter what.
“I knew music was going to be it for me when I was 10,” she recalls. “I did ‘Showtime at the Apollo’ when I was 10 and it was the first time that I’d ever performed on TV and it felt great. Even with the crazy lady that used to stand at the front of the stage! It made me want to keep going and I couldn’t imagine doing anything else.”
According to the star, the most surprising aspect of her career thus far hasn’t been the topsy-turvy nature of the business — it’s been the love and support she’s gotten in an industry where people like to believe women are at each other’s throats at all times.
“You always hear how female artists don’t get along, how they hate each other — but that hasn’t been my experience,” she shares. “I’m about to go on tour with K. Michelle and she is the sweetest person and we just get along. I call some my friends outside of the industry — and she’s one. Bridget Kelly, Elle Varner — these are women that are all coming up together a bit, and everybody’s just supportive of each other. That surprised me more than anything.”
