Album Notes

When most people think about Hawaii, they think about black sand beaches, volcanic islands, and year round 80-degree weather. The city of Honolulu hosts the world famous Waikiki Strip, home to Shella a.k.a. "The Blasian", because of her Black & Asian heritage. Shella is a rapper, singer, performer, and producer with the unique ability to ride a beat like no other! Not only does she write her own lyrics, she does this fluently in English and Japanese. Her melodic lines and catchy phrases undoubtedly let you know she has an exotic style of her own.

Shella Sanders was born and raised in Honolulu to an African American father and Japanese mother. Her musical influences stem from both cultures. Shella got her start in music at the early age of 11 as a DJ for school events and house parties. Tragically, her father was killed a year later and her passion for music grew as she learned how to turn bad emotions to good ones by writing and singing songs. By age 14, Shella began to get radio play and also appeared on many different compilation albums covering the island. She was the opening act for several major artists that came to Hawaii, including Sean Paul and Styles P. Shella's following grew beyond Hawaii and caught the eye of many record execs.

At age 15, she was flown to New York to talk about a record deal with the Ruff Ryders. Everything seemed to be coming together, then suddenly Shella's mother was murdered in Waikiki which forced her to move to Chicago with family at age 16. Numb to the world, with music as her only outlet Shella persevered and started to produce her own music and incorporate japanese lyrics into her already lavish flow. Toyota caught wind of this new bilingual sound and placed her on a promotional Cd sampler for Scion. This drove Shella to embark on a journey to bridge the gap between asian an american urban pop markets. Upon graduating high school a year early, Shella went on to study audio engineering and received her pro tools operators license.

Finally 18, with thoughts of touching a new fan base Shella went to Tokyo for a while creating a buzz and developing international appeal. She linked up with DJ Princess Cut, a down south Japanese renowned DJ and put together her first EP: Blasian Music presented by DJ Princess Cut. The EP features Lil Flip and Hawaii's own, Fiji. Distributed by Cisco Music Japan, this is just the first step of many toward Shella's independent Success.