About Lemel

Lemel has been making music his entire life, beginning to take it seriously as early as the 3rd grade. He was fortunate enough to be part of a non-profit organization called Little Kids Rock that supplied him with a free guitar and after school lessons. With help from his teachers, Lemel took this further and formed his own band in the 4th grade with his classmates. Mikell would go on to compose his own songs, winning first place in multiple youth song writing contests. He taught these songs to his band and they performed them at various professional venues in the Bay Area.

Lemel was naturally proficient in various areas of music and his teachers fondly referred to him as a “prodigy” in his early years. This trajectory steadily continued until Lemel reached the 9th grade and left the non-profit program. This resulted in a lengthy hiatus from music all together. It was in these years that he transitioned his style from Alt-rock to primarily Rap and RnB.

Lemel Mikell did not start making music again until the summer of 2015, prior to beginning his senior year of high school. During this break, he took time to grow as a creator. He developed a love for fashion and street-wear, designing his own custom clothing and collecting retro Jordans. He played basketball and ran track at a high level. Most assumed that he would strive for an athletic scholarship and continue his education through sports. This is what his coaches and parents wanted. Although he loved it, most of his free time went to athletics. By the 12th grade, he had other plans.

He abandoned his dreams of a scholarship and began working on his music everyday. He stopped focusing on school and started leaving classes to go to the studio he built at a friends house down the street. Eventually, he released a single he recorded on GarageBand called “Poppin and Boomin” which became a local hit and solidified him as an artist to watch in Santa Rosa. After graduating, Lemel attended a junior college in the area and studied music production and engineering. This took up too much of his time and he quickly dropped out in 2017 after failing his first 2 semesters. From here on, music became his main priority and focus. Lemel has since dropped 2 albums and a multitude of singles and music videos, all independently. Lemel connected with Deux Management in Los Angeles in 2018 and has been building his catalog and developing himself as an artist. Unfortunately, he has yet to reach his big break.

Lemel Mikell is native to Santa Rosa, California as he proudly boasts in many of his lyrics. Although only an hour drive from his parents hometown of Oakland and the iconic city of San Francisco, Santa Rosa has gone virtually unnoticed in the music and entertainment industry. Lemel and his peers hope to bring attention to the vast pool of talent in the Northern Bay Area where they were born and raised.

Originally falling in love with lyrically-driven, conscience rap music and the unique west coast sound of the Bay Area, Mikell soon included trap influences as well to his sound. Match him up with the top MCs, and Lemel can hold his own in a battle. As a child, his father exposed him to different artists from the 90s and early 2000s such as A Tribe Called Quest, OutKast, and Lupe Fiasco, pushing him to study how they formulated their rhymes. Always shying away from the mainstream, Lemel was a dedicated fan of the underground rap scene as well. Nonetheless, the inspiration from his years in an alternative rock band never left him and his sound has continued to evolve. The product of these different influences is a genre-bending artist with a finesse to his approach that could only be grown in the Bay Area.

The product is Lemel Mikell.

You’ll just have to listen to understand…