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ALEXIS COLEMAN
In college, she wrote a paper on her maternal and paternal grandmothers. Her maternal grandmother, Alice, after she finished reading it, looked at Alexis and said bluntly, “You’re a writer.”
“But I want to do music!”
“That’s fine," she said. "...but whatever it is that you do, you’re supposed to write.”
St. Louis native Alexis Coleman is a multidisciplinary artist — finding her expressions as a singer-songwriter, essayist, poet, photographer, and actor . She grew up listening to 80s R&B and gospel music, and was heavily influenced by Fred Hammond, Oleta Adams, and Stevie Wonder. It fostered her ear for vibrant low vocal tones, and drew her towards an infusion of jazz, acoustic pop, and soul. Though she began writing poetry in her teens, she didn’t begin to song write until her mid-20s as the only means of coping with post-graduate life.
Alexis' urge to write manifested as purged thoughts to paper in poetry, essay, and prose. She began her classical vocal training in high school with the Opera Theater of St. Louis’ Artists-In-Training program, and throughout her first year at Webster University. She switched to jazz vocal training thereafter, finishing her undergraduate music degree at Roosevelt University’s Chicago College of Performing Arts.
And yet, with all of this training…remaining quiet. Honing her skills as a vocalist and songwriter. Sorting through her depression, her existence as a black woman in America, jaded by toxic Christian communities. And working to come to terms with a pattern of late blooming that seemed to be a family legacy. Lots of false starts, but she kept trying again.
She started again by getting involved with local theater productions. She trained for a year with Slightly Askew Theater Ensemble (SATE), a theater company that specialized in Tadashi Suzuki and Viewpoints acting methods. She has performed with SATE in their 2009 production of Top Girls. In 2013, she was cast in R-S Theatrics' production of Parade the Musical, in the role of Minnie McKnight.
With sketches of poems and lyrics in many notebooks, it wasn’t until she was 35 that she finished writing her first song, Fly (Be Brave) with Andrew Gibson. She would later collaborate with Gibson again, along with Pacia Elaine and Loren D, on How to Survive August in August 2018. Alexis has since recorded and performed background vocals for Rev. Osagfeyo Sekou, Blvck Spvde, and for bands Mathias & the Pirates and Superhero Killer.
Alexis released her first EP Blooming, Vol. 1 in June 2019 on what would have been her grandmother Alice's 100th birthday. New singles and music are forthcoming. Presently, she is a graduate student at Savannah College of Art & Design studying Film & Television (class of 2024), and continues to perform and collaborative with other artists in music, theater, and film.
photo credit: Tiffany Sutton