Mutiat Yewande Isola, professionally known as Wande, is a Nigerian AmericanChristian hip hop artist, actress and former journalist and A&R administrator from Austin, Texas, United States. She signed to the Christian hip hop label Reach Records in 2019, where she had worked as an A&R administrator. Prior to that, as an independent artist, from 2013 through 2018 she released multiple singles and made numerous featured appearances on various songs, as well as worked as a music journalist. She is the first woman signed to Reach. Her debut extended play (EP), Exit, was released on April 24, 2020, followed by a mini-EP The Decision on December 4, 2020.
Biography
Early life
Wande was born in Nigeria but raised in Round Rock, Texas and then Austin, Texas, United States.[1][2] In addition to English, she is fluent in Yoruba.[1] Most of her family was Muslim, except for her mother, who was Christian.[2][3] At first she was not allowed to go to church, and then started having to get up at 5 A.M. to read the Bible and go with her mother to work so that she could get picked up to go to church.[4] Wande said in April 2020 that she used to joke "that I'd go to Mosque and church".[3] Her curiosity about God led her to search on the internet for Christian rap, and the first result to come up was the 2006 song "Prayin' for You" by Lecrae.[3] In sixth grade, she started playing the flute and studied music through junior high school.[3] She converted to Christianity in seventh grade while interning at a camp in 2009 in Columbus, Texas, a decision for which she encountered opposition from within her family.[2][3][5] While at the camp, she also saw a performance by the Christian hip hop collective 116 Clique, which at that time consisted of Lecrae, Trip Lee, Tedashii, and Sho Baraka.[3]
Early career
Despite this initial interest in music, Wande wanted to be a doctor, and enrolled in a health and science program in junior high school.[3] She became interested in rapping after a biology teacher allowed her to compose a rap about cellular transport instead of writing an essay or making a presentation.[1][3][6] Despite this, she initially continued in studying health and sciences, even acquiring a license to be a nurse's aid.[3] According to Wande, she had "an internal struggle with the whole rap thing. Africans don’t really mess with creative careers. You either become a doctor or a lawyer."[3] However, she decided to switch majors and went into journalism and public relations at University of Texas at Austin.[2][3][5] As a journalist, she anticipated that she could get access to artists, attend concerts, and conduct interviews.[3] She soon started writing for the Christian hip hop website Rapzilla, and started assisting the Christian hip hop record label RMG.[3] She rapped at campus events as a form of Christian ministry.[2][5] She was a member of the Alpha Kappa Alpha and Sigma Phi Lambda sororities, the National Association of Black Journalists, IGotSole Dance Company, and the Texas Orange Jackets.[2][7][8] Her first released record was a feature on the song "B.I.G." by D-Flow on their 2013 album Quarter to Vinci.[9] She released her first single, "No Flex" featuring ikilledmarlon, in May 2016.[10] She performed at South by Southwest in 2016,[11] 2017,[12][13] and 2018.[14] She did some A&R work for Ace Harris, and 2017, while still pursuing her university education, she began an internship at Reach Records.[15][16] She released eleven songs during 2018, making the Rapzilla list of 15 Freshman of 2019.[17][18] Shortly before her graduation in 2018 she was hired as an administrator for the label's A&R.[15][16]
Reach Records (2018—present)
The following year, after five months after her hire as A&R, she was signed as a recording artist to Reach.[19][20] She released her debut single on the label, "Blessed Up", in April.[21] The single would be listed the next year on Michelle Obama's playlist.[22] Wande is the first woman signed to the label.[19] She has expressed a hope that her signing will make it easier for other women rappers to pursue a career in the highly male-dominated Christian hip hop genre. "I think it’ll show other labels that you shouldn’t be afraid to sign females. I hear a lot of excuses like, 'Oh it’s expensive' or 'Oh, we don’t know how the market will react to a woman.' 'Will they buy her music?' Obviously, a lot of Christian companies don’t have the money to just casually experiment with a Christian artist because you have to make sure they are profitable. So a lot of women get the short end of the stick because they don’t want to gamble on a woman."[23] She said that it initially took a while for her music to be released because of resistance that she encountered in the music industry because her abilities were undervalued on account of her being a woman. For example, she recounts that "I would fly somewhere, write a whole album, and would ask for the beat and the person wouldn’t send the song. I learned a lot about how people value you."[15] She also has mentioned the difficulty in getting exposure to her music when her lyrics do not discuss sex.[18] "Even artists like Cardi B have mentioned that they’ve tested it out and people will blast the sexual songs and go 'eh what is this' to the songs with a deeper meaning."[18]
On March 30, 2020, Wande announced her forthcoming extended play, Exit,[24] and the single "Happy" was released April 3, 2020.[25] "Be the Light", featuring Evan and Eris, followed as a single on April 17, 2020.[26]Exit was released on April 24, 2020.[27] Wande also has released music has part of 116 (formerly 116 Clique).[28] She said in an April 2020 interview that her father and her have made peace over her conversion and her decision to pursue a hip-hop music career.[4] On December 4, 2020, she released a three-song mini-EP entitled The Decision.[note 1] In the spring of 2022, she married Darius Dees.[32]
GOD IS SO GOOD!!!! AMEN
^The Decision is listed by retailers and streaming services such as Apple Music and Spotify, respectively, as a single,[29][30] but descriptions of it by news sources call it an EP.[31]
