Music/Next Big Thing

NAME: Osé
AGE: 17
BORN: Benin City, Nigeria
HOMETOWN: Brampton, Ont.
STYLE: Worldly words beyond her years with a smooth R&B style that packs a punch
IF YOU LIKE: H.E.R., Jhené Aiko, Brandy
TRAJECTORY: Comin’ in hot. Remarkably polished songwriting combined with chart-topping vocal skills and relentless work ethic should mean a fast rise for this talented teenager.

She’s still under the radar, but rising teenaged R&B soul sensation Osé has gone from dreaming of writing songs as good as her musical inspiration, Grammy-winning soul stylist H.E.R., to recently working with that singer’s management to help launch her barely one-year-old career.

Not bad for a 17-year-old who just started writing songs in 2019, posted her first track online in January 2020 and now crafts head-turning tunes that are dripping in wisdom and worldliness beyond her years—all from her childhood bedroom in her family’s home just outside Toronto.

Her sometimes soaring vocals are pushed by gentle but relentless grooves reminiscent of Alicia Keys, Jhené Aiko and yes, her inspiration, H.E.R.

“Those things haven’t all happened to me,” Osé assures me when asked to explain how such a young person could have experienced so much.

“I’m a theatre kid in my last year of high school. In drama they teach that you have to be in character, really put yourself in that person’s shoes. That’s what I like to do with my music.”

The child of a pastor, Osé grew up listening to and singing gospel before discovering soul music.

“I grew up in an African church and they always drill into you that when you are singing songs, sing them with feeling and emotion. You have to carry the people along. So I always try to put that into my songs.

“Every word I’m saying, I want you to feel it.”

A family vacation back to Nigeria in 2019, where she learned of her paternal grandmother’s thwarted efforts to have a music career, in part inspired Osé to launch hers.

“After my dad told me that, now I have my ‘why.’ I really have a reason not just to do it but keep it going as well, to go into the lens that she never could. I even look like her, too.

“I’m living my dream and I’m living hers.”

And how did she go from dreaming of singing like H.E.R. to working with her management, Jeff Robinson?

“We met on the new social network, Clubhouse, in December, “ she explains. After waiting hours to play her music in a virtual listening room– and almost giving up – Robinson randomly heard her songs. He tracked her down on Instagram and they spoke on the phone that same day.

“He said , ‘You’re super dope, your music is fire.’ and he told me he wants to start developing me as an artist. “It’s surreal.”