Image source: KatDahlia.com
“When the clock strikes 12 / I'mma set it off just like I wanna / Ooh baby, when the clock strikes 12 / We gon' turn it up don't tell your mama…”
These were the first lyrics I ever heard from Kat Dahlia, and ever since then, I’ve been hooked to her razor-sharp sounds and reggae vibes.
Kat Dahlia is an up and coming Cuban-American artist from Miami, FL. She is a singer-songwriter and a rapper with one debut album, “Gangsta,” and another on the rise. She’s written a variety of songs representing her Miami roots and strong Cuban influence, such as “Tumbao” and “Gansta en Español.”
Kat’s parents were once successful entrepreneurs, but she had to learn at an early age to become self-reliant. Her parents divorced and Kat experienced life out of hotel rooms for a great chunk of her childhood.
On her website, she mentions, “my parents came from no money, made money, but little by little went back to the struggle. We lived in a hotel room for a while and there was a time when I slept on a sofa-bed with two of my sisters while my other sister slept in an armchair. That’s when I realized I had to do shit on my own.”
She later became a waitress, and realized she wanted more from life, so she moved to New York.
Currently, she’s working on her new album, "My Garden," which was originally scheduled to be released February 2014, but was set back due to Kat’s vocal-chord problems.
She’s now back to focusing on her work, as she mentions on her website, “my album is a plethora of sounds, not unlike a garden of flowers,” Kat says. “You have daisies, sunflowers, willows, thorns - all evoking different emotions, expressions and meanings. I’m inviting everyone into my garden, my mind, my music.”
Her down-to-earth attitude and incredible talent established her in 2013 as #14 on Billboard’s “Next Big Sounds.” "My Garden" will be released in September 2014, and is said to feature rap, hip-hop and soul music.
Check out her latest video for the song “Crazy:”