We were lucky to catch up with Tehillah Alphonso recently and have shared our conversation below.

Alright, Tehillah thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Are you able to earn a full-time living from your creative work? If so, can you walk us through your journey and how you made it happen?

When I was asked to do this interview for CanvasRebel, I went back to read my last interview with VoyageLA back in August 2020. There are definitely pieces of me that I see in that interview that have stayed the same over the last four years, but there’s even more about me that has changed (hopefully for the better). That girl had just graduated from college into the pandemic and was struggling to make a living in LA where her entire industry had come to a screeching halt; she was definitely scared but put on a brave face and tried to be optimistic. Fast forward four years, and she’s had some career highs and some personal lows. But she would be so proud of the person she’s becoming.

Since my last interview, I’ve been working full-time as a freelance musician in Los Angeles. I’ve had the privilege of singing on dozens of feature film scores (e.g. Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, Wish, The Color Purple, NOPE, etc.), arranging for vocal ensembles around the country, directing a high school group and teaching private lessons at USC (my alma mater), singing background vocals for artists around town, and traveling the world to perform. And to be honest, I have no idea how I did it.

When I graduated from college, the entire world had shut down, and I was stuck at home in my little apartment in Burbank. My sole source of income was my teaching job, where I basically had to figure out how to direct my high school a cappella group via Zoom. Arrangement commissions and home recording sessions were few and far between, and I had to rely heavily on my parents and the generosity of my roommate and her family to survive financially for the latter half of 2020. Going to USC and living in LA was a huge risk, personally and financially, and to have graduated with no prospects of work, a tower of student loans, and no creative outlet sent me spiraling; I felt like a failure and that I had let my family and everyone from my hometown who believed in me down.

Though my mental health was at an all-time low, I did everything I could to make the most out of my abundant free time. The shift happened when I turned to social media. I began recording and posting mini a cappella covers to my Instagram and TikTok, not for the goal of going viral or becoming famous but, rather, to put all of my creative energy into making music that inspired me and could hopefully inspire others. From a logistical standpoint, it also gave me a reason to keep singing and developing my skills, and all these videos served as a visual-audial online resume of everything I was capable of. Little did I know these videos would jumpstart my career in ways I couldn’t have imagined.

I was suddenly singing a lot more than I expected. I had the opportunity to record on a number of film projects from the comfort of my own home including “Minions 2: The Rise of Gru” and a documentary scored by composer Mervyn Warren, previously of Take 6. I even had the immense honor of working with Olivia Rodrigo as a background vocalist on her live video of “favorite crime”, as a result of her assistant music director at the time finding one of my a cappella covers and reaching out to me on Instagram via DM (I almost ignored his message because I thought it was spam!).

Additionally, shortly after beginning to post, inquiries for a cappella arrangements started flooding in from groups around the country. I started out writing and recording demos for mostly high school and college ensembles; semi-professional and professional groups came into the mix soon after. Though I didn’t mean for it to happen, I eventually created a good chunk of my living from writing for vocal ensembles around the world. One of my pieces for Tonality, an LA-based choir whose concerts discuss topics such as mental health and social justice, was even nominated for a GRAMMY Award in November 2021, and that nomination became the turning point of my career.

Since then, I’ve just been taking whatever life throws at me. Some months go by where I am completely overwhelmed with work and long for everything to just stop. Some months, I have absolutely nothing in my calendar and am begging for something to do. Sometimes, I’ll sit at home stuck on an arrangement that brings me no joy and wonder if it’s too late to switch careers. Occasionally, I’ll have a session or performance that fulfills my soul in ways that I can’t even describe.

I don’t know how I got to this point in my life. I couldn’t give anyone a play-by-play of my career even if I wanted to. There are such big life moments I’ve had that are connected to experiences I can trace all the way back to elementary school that have changed the trajectory of my life. Even if I had the opportunity to go back in time and rewrite my story or do anything differently, I don’t think I would. I firmly believe that everything that I’ve gone through in my life – the good, the bad, the beautiful, the ugly – all needed to happen to get to where I am today.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

For those of you who don’t know me, I’m a Nigerian-American singer and arranger, New-Jersey-born, Nebraska-raised, and now living in Los Angeles. I work as a professional background vocalist, session singer, vocal arranger, and music director.

I like to believe that what sets me apart from other people in my field is my people-first mentality. This industry is notorious for its cutthroat competition and doing whatever you must to “make it” in this city, even if it means hurting the people around you. But I strongly believe in the power of kindness, authenticity, and building community. The few times that I find myself in a position of power, I do everything I can to elevate my people around me. Whether it’s making sure my peers are compensated fairly, putting others forward with the highest recommendation, or simply supporting my friends by streaming their music or attending their shows, it is so important that we build each other up and surround ourselves with people who make us want to be better. There is room for *everyone* in this industry and in this town.

What’s a lesson you had to unlearn and what’s the backstory?

One of the biggest lessons that I unlearned was that if I wasn’t pursuing a career as a solo artist, then I wasn’t doing anything meaningful with my life. Having grown up in Nebraska, there weren’t many people who were pursuing music as a career; if they were, it was either music education, volunteer choirs, or community theatre, none of which I had any interest in. So when I decided to go to USC to study Popular Music Performance, I ultimately decided that I’d be trying to do the singer-songwriter thing, since I didn’t know what else was out there.

But when I arrived at USC, I quickly figured out I didn’t want to go down the artist route either. Though I *could* write songs and *could* perform front and center at my own shows, it didn’t bring me the same joy and thrill I saw in so many of my classmates. It also didn’t help that I was incredibly insecure and constantly comparing my talents to those of my peers. I almost changed majors in the beginning of my sophomore year because I was convinced that I simply wasn’t cut out for this line of work. Luckily, my professors at the time didn’t let me drop the program and encouraged me to stay for at least another year. Thank goodness I took their advice because it was in this time that I discovered a different line of work: session singing.

I remember thinking there was something wrong with me because I *loved* singing background vocals and leading rehearsals behind the scenes, but being in the spotlight brought on an intense wave of anxiety that I thought everyone just had to learn to deal with. So when I found out that there is whole career dedicated to background vocal work, I knew immediately that was the career for me. I spent a whole semester my junior year taking private lessons to build my skills in session singing – sight-reading, making a vocal reel, soundalike demo work, and ear training.

Since graduating, I’ve made a full-time living working as a background vocalist. I’ve loved getting to use different parts of my voice that I never would have discovered or developed working as a solo artist. I’ve loved the challenge of figuring out how to blend my voice with other people and fitting into each new unit. More than anything, I’ve loved the versatility of the music I get to create and the many artists and musicians I can collaborate with now with this as my career path. And the beautiful thing is I still have the freedom to do whatever I want to do. If I ever want to write with other songwriters or pick my artist project back up without the financial burden of the uncertainty, I can. Though background vocalists are often seen as expendable in the live and recorded industry, they are secretly the backbone of taking already great music to a whole other level.

What’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative in your experience?

The most rewarding aspect of being a creative is the people that I get to share it with. The best part of every career win is getting to celebrate with my friends and colleagues, especially in the line of work that we’re in. Singing on a major artist’s project is awesome. But getting to sing music that you care about with people you care about makes it so worth it. Having a huge solo at a sold-out venue feels great. But looking out into the audience and seeing your friends rooting you on brings an indescribable joy. Even more so is looking around the stage and *performing* with your favorite people in the world is so fulfilling and beyond special. Watching a movie and catching your friends’ names in the credits always makes me emotional.

I strongly believe that when one of us wins, we all win.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.iamtehillah.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/iamtehillah/
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@iamtehillah

Image Credits

Chester Capistrano, Dario Griffin, Randall Michelson