Kelsey Althea

A debut offering, Althea & Oliver takes the coming of age theme and turns it on its ear. Moracho has penned a story with messy characters and a conclusion that feels somehow unsatisfying, but then you realize it couldn’t have ended any other way. Althea and Oliver have been friends for years, ten or more actually, and they are the epitome of opposites attract.

Born on December 25th in Detroit, Michigan Althea Rene began her musical journey at the tender age four-year-old. She studied classical music while attending Howard University. For more than 10 years she worked as a Wayne County Deputy Sheriff (in Detroit, Michigan) during the day and performed in jazz clubs at night. Today. she is a full-time performing/recording artist that gained musical inspiration from her father Dezie McCullers (one of Motown’s original Funk Brothers).

Due West is the culmination of multi-instrumentalist Althea SullyCole’s fourteen years studying the kora, a twenty-one stringed harp from the Mandé region of West Africa (encompassing present-day Mali, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Senegal, and the Gambia). The tracks that constitute Due West are songs that Althea has collected travelling across three continents (Africa, Europe and North America) with the instrument. From “Alalake,” a song at the heart of the kora tradition, to original meditation “Middle Passage,” the album traces routes across the Black Atlantic in modes, rhythms and collaborations that are the reflection of Althea’s unique imagination as a kora player.

Kelsey fell in love with music when she was very young, and was improvising songs even before she learned to read. At age five, she began classical piano training, and learned to balance form and technicality while developing her own voice as an artist. Growing up, her family always had music playing in the house, and she spent a great deal of her childhood playing songs by ear. She also was captivated by the beautiful nostalgic melodies of jazz standards and the lush harmonies of classic musicals and old Disney movies, and enjoyed making her own arrangements.