PHLO FINISTER MOD
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Finister met a series of industry professionals and producers ( Drake, Charlie Walk, Steve Lindsey, Cameron Strang, Jeff Barry, David Baerwald, and Diane Warren) who would exert influence on her own musical path over the next few years. Whilst developing her own sense of self, Finister found herself working with Def Jam Records in the styling of some of their female proteges in her late teens. I got bullied in a rougher part of the streets, and it made me a person with a backbone.' After getting kicked out for fighting, Finister transferred to Hamilton High School. Not mixed or diverse cultures like where I had come from. Speaking of her time at Crenshaw, Finister described it as 'very aggressive. She attended Downtown Magnets High School in Fashion for a single year until her mother relocated to South Central, Los Angeles, and she was enrolled in Crenshaw High School.

This exposure to these styles also helped Iconika develop her taste in music, with some of her earliest influences being Jerry Bock, Mozart, and Billie Holiday. Growing up, Iconika was also banned from listening to music and discovered her early tastes and passion for music through classical music and gospel music, as well as developing her distinctive vocal style at a young age from her time spent as a singer for the choir at her grandfather's church. She attended a small private Christian school where her grandfather was a pastor and her grandmother a local English teacher, she also attended ballet classes at Hawthorn Dance Academy until a late age. As a child, Iconika's upbringing was very reserved and traditional. “In the ‘90s, TLC and Aaliyah and all those girls were dressing with the baggy pants and a look, so to me it was important to take R&B and give it a new image in a sense and put all my influences of ‘60s pop culture with that, because it was similar to the ‘90s hip-hop/R&B thing.Born in Oakland, California, Iconika (born Elijah Finister) is the daughter of a half- Portuguese, half-black mother and raised in her hometown of Oakland up until the age of 5, when she moved to Los Angeles with her mother. Me being in my youth, it was important for me to embrace that,” she says. They were all dressing really mod, but they were a part of pop culture. When I saw the photo of Sedgwick that they took for Vogue in her house and it said youthquaker a whole different world. Her music is driven almost wholly by her look, and she takes cues from the youthquaker movement sparked by ‘60s style icons Edie Sedgwick and Twiggy. Given her towering height and beauty, you could easily confuse her for a model (she did styling for Def Jam Records after dropping out of high school).

PHLO FINISTER MOD

I want to make a classic R&B, but the R&B that I’m making is going to be more avant garde.”īorn in Oakland and raised in L.A., Finister instantly attracts glimpses with her bone-straight hair, perfectly manicured eyebrows, vintage mod attire and sultry makeup that would make Amy Winehouse proud. What I’m doing, I want to be more innovative for my generation. “People are copying so much these days, it’s hard to separate.

I think it can be authentic and classic, but it can have a new spin,” she said while sipping a Thai tea at downtown L.A.’s Demitasse Café. “Urban fan bases need to be revolutionized.

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