Feature Artist: Noori Belai

Noori Belai has been singing for as long as she can remember. Growing up outside of Washington D.C. in Silver Spring, Maryland, she constantly had melodies and lyrics stuck in her head, belting them out for whoever was around—even when they didn’t want to listen. “When I was a kid, all I remember was singing and everyone telling me to shut up,” she laughs. “But it stuck with me.”

As the daughter of Ethiopian immigrants in a predominantly white suburb, Noori often felt caught between multiple worlds. “At school I couldn’t really identify with American culture because I didn’t grow up with it,” she says, so she turned to music – eventually experimenting on her own, combining the piano with songwriting. “Music started off as an escape and it evolved into self-expression,” she says.

Source: Spotify

Twitter: @nooribelai

Instagram: @nooribelai