It’s 10 minutes after 11 a.m. on a Tuesday, and Aloha Mischeaux is at her North Side home, talking on the phone to her father, St. Louis Alderman Freeman Bosley Sr., but not for long.
The sexy, syrupy-sweet singer is rolling to Shock City Studio in Soulard in South St. Louis for a 1 o’clock session.
There, she meets her management team, executive producer and some members of her band. They are, respectively, Monster Management (Mark Williams and Reno) and producer Bradd Young (Black Persian). Her other producers are Vito (Black Spade) and Noize City (Jo Capo and Rill).
The band members haven’t been permanently assembled, so they remain nameless for now.
Home life, studios sessions and decisions.
That’s just some of what the former American Idol favorite has been juggling for last year – at least.
“We’re doing everything that’s going to make (the beautiful) Aloha Mischeaux stand out, instead of a pretty girl standing,” said Aloha Mischeaux in an exclusive interview with the American.
As a girl in the ‘hood with her name, moles and multicultural semblance, Aloha Mischeaux always stood out.
These days it’s a carefully contrived creation with calculated steps as the singer reintroduces herself to the world.
Unlike some former American Idol contestants, Aloha Mischeux isn’t still trying to live off the fame she copped from the popular Fox reality show that virtually manufactures national recording artists.
She’d just as soon have everyone forget about it – and tune in to the Aloha Mischeaux show.
That show began running long before American Idol even piloted.
“I wanted to be singer long before I wanted to be on American Idol,” she said.
Don’t get the sultry singer wrong; she wouldn’t trade in her experience on the show.
“I learned a lot – about how TV is ran and how to put a show together, as well as the bad and ugly of show business politics,” she said.
Those were the good things she learned. The bad, she said, was getting up early every the morning with her trainer.
But even that turned out to be all good: She’s now a morning person, which works well as she grinds toward a major a deal, which she’s very worthy of.
Obviously, it’s practically impossible to talk (or write) about a former American Idol contestant without mentioning the show, but what you got from Aloha on the show isn’t what you get now.
On American Idol she was pushed as a Beyonce, Ciara, Brittney Spears pop type, but that isn’t what she is or wants to be. At first she compromised, but not anymore.
“I love Beyonce and I don’t mind being compared to the best in the industry, but I have to be me,” Aloha said.
She was all that at her debut performance for Aloha the Show a few weeks ago during Martini Mondays at AJs inside the Adam’s Mark Hotel. She busted loose on some serious funk, soul, rock and R&B alternative groove thang.
Don’t get too judgmental about the rock, as Aloha says some of us tend to do.
“When we hear the word ‘rock,’ we don’t know how to take it, but we started it,” she said, referencing Jimmi Hendrix and Tina Turner, her idol. She just loves her some Tina Turner, and old-school music in general.
“I appreciated that old-school music and want young people to get a chance to appreciate it,” Aloha said.
In her set at AJs, the sexy singer performed “Cry Baby,” brought home by singing, ‘Ain’t no sunshine when I am gone,’ part of the hook in the Bill Withers classic, “Ain’t No Sunshine.”
She hasn’t recorded it that way, but during a studio session it came to mind and she started belting it and thought she’d croon it during her live performance.
Every song she performed that night had onlookers in a rhythmic stupor.
She proved herself a consummate performer, as did the members of her accompanying band.
“I think it’s great to start out with a band; it’s real, authentic music and I love the sound of it,” she said, adding that when she was a dancer she practiced to instruments.
“It’s better than being in the studio pressing buttons.”
Aloha has some of the best button pushers in the Lou on her team in Bradd Young, Vito and Noize City.
All of them have a background with musical instruments, which thrills Aloha who says they make it easier for the band to transform the music.
Thus far, Aloha Mischeaux has recorded 30 songs and written more than 100. On that Tuesday in the studio she redid an Isley Brothers’ classic.
“I just keep recording,” she said, noting that she has matured in the past three years. “My songs weren’t as believable, but lately I’ve been writing true to my heart.”
She’s been primed all her life. Her grandmother kept her in the church choir, and she was always involved all kinds of productions. Still, she’s gangsta, she said in her beautiful, girly voice.
She loves living in the ‘hood, especially in the ward that her father is refurbishing.
“They got my back,” she said of her ‘hoodies.
She has five brothers and sisters, one of whom is Freeman Bosley Jr., St. Louis’s first African-American mayor.
She really loves her family. She and her mother, Tuneerleauch Carol, are two peas in a pod.
But the family-oriented Virgo is married to her music.
For fun and exercise, she boxes and takes ghetto aerobics. Still, she loves and eats chocolate and Twizzlers. So, it’s no wonder she like visits to Quick Trip.
Her other favorite places to go in St. Louis are the Riverfront and Forest Park. “It’s a great place to clear your mind,” she said of the park.
