Midian

Midian never believed her mother. It's just what mom's do, she thought: tell their daughter they have the voice of an angel. On occasion, as a girl growing up outside the nation's capital, Midian would escape to her room and let her voice run free; she'd imagine she was Etta James one day, Aretha Franklin the next. But it was just for fun; after all, she had convinced herself she wasn't a singer. So imagine her reaction then, when as a teenager in a recording studio she upstaged a professionally-trained friend, laying down vocals so refined it left her peer speechless. "I was like 'Holy shit!' I can do this!" Midian recalls of the epiphany upon hearing her voice piping through the studio speakers. As it turns out, Midian was in fact a singer; she'd always been one. Now, only a few years later, and thanks to the success of her breakout single, "Bitter", a breathtaking display of vocal prowess and emotional maturity, she finds herself one of the most promising new voices in the music industry.

Midian's voice is massive -- the sort that swallows you whole upon impact. In it you can hear the soulful stylings of the late Etta James and the outsize "wow factor" of contemporary artists like Christina Aguilera. It's a tool that's been refined. After discovering she had vocal chops, Midian pursued formal training. Soon however, the singer discovered the mechanistic approach of coaching was diminishing her vocal individuality. "I felt like I was going to lose the character of my voice," she says. "So I stopped taking voice lessons and I started recording." Over the next few years Midian became what she lovingly refers to as a "studio rat," recording hundreds of songs, all the while refining her style and technique. Soon she moved out to LA and began writing and recording her own numbers. But few knew of her palpable progress; it's how she wanted it. "I always kept this stuff to myself," she says of the recordings from this time period. Midian’s motives were simple: she’d seen far too many singers thrown into the mainstream machine at a young age, only to be tossed aside at a moment's notice. She had other plans. "I feel like I developed into a professional -- just not in the eye of the public," she explains. "Now I'm fully confident in my abilities to deliver the best."

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