BIO
Born and raised in Washington dc by parents Warren and Eunice Jefferson in a Bajan American household Whitney Chantél is the last of 5 children. Growing up her father Warren Jefferson was a fellow singer taking after the footsteps of his father(Whitney's Grandfather)Edward Jefferson lead singer of the group "The Cashmere's",Growing up he was in a band called top secret as the lead singer. With these influences, Whitney immediately fell in love with music. At the age of 4 Whitney fell in love with stars like Michael Jackson and Beyonce Knowles-Carter. From elementary to middle school, Whitney did every talent show and musical brought to her way and couldn't fight the feeling that took over her on stage it was as if she became a "different person". In elementary school, Whitney won 1st place in a poetry slam contest for a poem she wrote for her school, noticing she had a gift her principal influenced her mother to put her in musicals at the Kennedy center and the summer before enrolling in middle school she played “lily” in the Kennedy center's rendition of Alice in Wonderland Jr. In middle school, Whitney then discovered her ability to write music and started to record music. She often did covers, then later wrote her own lyrics and started remixing songs like Beautiful Girl by Sean Kingston. She wrote the song Where do I go at the age of 11 while listening to random beats online and later recorded the song in 10th grade at her high school Duke Ellington school of the arts with the help of an artist and producer Robbie Celeste.
At Duke, Ellington Whitney learned more about her craft and experienced what it's like to really love music and everything about the craft of music but wanted more than just vocal and music theory lessons so at the age of 16 she volunteered at the nearby boys and girls club and taught young girls everything she knew about performing. Later on her birthday, she put together a showcase called Pursuit of a Dream to show off what she had taught as well as her talents to family and friends. Moving forward to her last year in high school she put together her last high school showcase also called the Pursuit of a Dream 2 but this time it was for her fellow seniors to show off their talents as well. Fighting with depression and social anxiety Whitney started to develop Borderline personality disorder and created "Chantél" a more sexy, fearless version of herself to cope through highschool. The only thing keeping Whitney afloat through school was her love for music.
Graduating from high school Whitney kept pursuing her dreams and went to the Clarion University of Pennsylvania for musical theatre. As a freshman at Clarion Whitney took on 13 credits while performing at open mic nights and winning first place at every talent showcase at her school then later putting together another showcase for clarion university students called The CUEA’s (clarion university entertainment awards) to shed light on the wonderful talents there. While in school Whitney created many memories not only for herself but other young women, giving them opportunities to perform on a level only "stars" get to. She formed a team called Xquisite and went on to put on the showcase A night with Xquisite before leaving clarion to finish her education. After leaving Clarion Whitney ventured back into the city to pursue her career even further, writing and recording her music on her own and releasing her first single "Crazy" in October of 2017. From the time of her release, Whitney faced struggles finding her place and her team in the industry and realized the person with her best interest was herself. While a junior in school Whitney became pregnant and gave birth to her daughter with husband, Glenn Smith
Not allowing that to hold her back or stop her Whitney vowed to still pursue music but now from a new perspective. Once graduated from Bowie State University with her degree in musical theatre Whitney went on to finish out her independent career while also being a mom, wife, and entrepreneur. Her new project will introduce "Chantél" to the world, A side of her that she's been afraid of for a very long time but, now that she's a grown woman she's ready for the world to see.
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