My guest today is Lachi. She is a force of nature — a whirling Diva with non-stop energy who sings, writes, produces, acts, and is visually impaired.

As she says in her YouTube series, Off Beat: "I'm a black girl, going blind, just trying to stay fabulous. I'm here to motivate. I'm here to educate." And that she does.

In the Dance, Pop-EDM world, Lachi is a go-to singer-songwriter. She boasts millions of streams across platforms and has collaborated with A-list artists like Snoop Dogg, Styles P, and Markus Schulz. She's also received two nominations for her work from the Independent Music Awards.

Lachi also uses her voice to advocate for disability inclusion in the arts. Forbes, Essence, The New York Times, the Huffington Post, and more have profiled her as an Inclusion advocate, with The New York Times listing Lachi as one of the 28 ways to learn about disability culture. She's presented for the Recording Academy and the National Endowment for the Arts and is a Recording Academy Advocacy Committee member. In addition, she serves on the NORA Project Leadership Council — an organization working to build inclusivity in classrooms. Recently, Lachi hosted the pilot episode of Renegades — a PBS American Masters segment that explores the cultural contributions of people with disabilities and how they've transformed America.

In our conversation, we talk about how Lachi made the leap from a day job at The Army Corp of Engineers to making music full-time, the importance of a manager, mentor, and your team in the music business, and how she came out of the disability closet to become one of the leading advocates for disability inclusion in the music and recording industry.

Lachi is going to rock your world.

For full show notes, transcriptions of this episode, and more offerings for singers, you can visit my website HERE.

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You can find Lachi on her website or on YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter.

The songs from today’s episode are DNA, Boss, Bigger Plans, and It’s Our Time. (used with permission.) To listen or download, go HERE.

Theme music for the Podcast was composed by John Smith. He helps me edit all the podcast episodes too. (Thanks, honey!) 

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