When I heard her single ‘Breakfast, Lunch and Dinner’ I was mesmerised by Olaide Steele’s jazzy vocals. It’s clear that she is a natural born vocalist and performer. I caught up with Olaide about her beginnings in music and what inspired this amazing track. 

“I’ve loved music for as long as I can remember. Apparently, when my mum was pregnant with me I was dancing in the scan. Both my parents love music, so I grew up around a lot of music from a young age.”

“My grandma sings too, she’s won singing competitions and I always remember going to my grandparents’ house as a child and my grandma singing around the house and singing at family events. Even now that she lives in Grenada, she still sings to me on the phone. So I think being around my grandma’s singing had a big impact on my love of music too.”

Olaide’s influences reach from the R&B styles of Destiny’s Child to the Jazz vocals of Amy Winehouse which you can definitely tell has had an impact on her own sound.  

“Beyoncé is definitely one of my biggest influences. I love that she always gives an incredible performance and she’s someone whose music I’ve loved since back when she was in Destiny’s Child. One of the first concerts I went to was a Destiny’s Child concert. I always remember watching Beyoncé’s Crazy In Love video as a child and thinking ‘I want to do that’. Whitney Houston is definitely another big influence for me, her vocals are just so powerful and incomparable. Another influence of mine is Amy Winehouse, I love her soulfulness and jazziness.“

I’ve already mentioned how much I love Olaide’s song ‘Breakfast Lunch and Dinner’. It’s a showcase of what an amazing jazz vocalist she truly is, I asked her what the inspiration behind this song was? 

“I wrote Breakfast Lunch Dinner when I was 16 or 17. The inspiration started one morning before school when my mum was childminding. I walked in the kitchen to make my breakfast and one of the toddlers kept calling her breakfast ‘dinner’, so I thought that was kind of funny and that’s how I came up with the line ‘Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner it is all the same’ and the melody for that line. I later came up with the rest of the song. I decided I wanted to make it about love (rather than food), so I came up with the concept of a man having an affair and his wife saying she’s going to leave him and him wanting her to stay. The focus of the song for me was really communicating that feeling of betrayal and being deceived. There’s actually an additional verse to the song that I recorded and never released. I removed it from the song so it would be short enough to submit as an entry for the Eurovision Song Contest… I kind of want to share it! I might sing it in one of my virtual gigs.”

Olaide has taken the opportunity in lockdown to put on virtual gigs I asked how these were going? 

“I started doing virtual gigs recently and it’s been such a great opportunity to perform and chat with people. The virtual gigs are live-streamed on YouTube and I share a private link to the YouTube livestream with the members of my Patreon on the home page and via email. I have a link to my Patreon in my linktree in my Instagram bio under ‘Live Virtual Gigs and more’. It’s really nice, because it’s a great way to perform live, but also because it’s really fun talking to people in the live chat and sharing exclusives – it just has such a chilled, friendly, intimate feel.”

Olaide is a talented and forward thinking artist who is set for big things, I asked what’s next for her.

“I’m currently working on some new songs to release this year, which is super exciting. I’ve been collaborating with some really talented producers on these tracks, so super excited for everyone to hear them! “