Terri Walker

Terri Walker doesn't do mediocre — and she'll tell you so to your face.

Two decades on from her critically acclaimed 2003 debut Untitled, released via Def Soul/Mercury, the singer-songwriter joins Iyare Igiehon on SOUL Cast for a conversation about what it actually takes to sustain a voice in this industry — not the highlight reel, the mechanics.

She talks about growing up in Germany from the age of four with a Jamaican mother who wrote "RUBBISH" in capital letters on CDs she didn't rate. About discovering Phyllis Nelson, then Whitney, then Lauryn Hill, and watching Sister Act 2 three times back to back in a German cinema. About singing "I Will Always Love You" a cappella at her father's funeral at 18, in a room of thousands, and being spotted there by the manager who'd start her career.

She's candid about the major label years: the deal she never chased, the second-album pressure to chase Jamelia and Beyoncé, the Cutfather & Joe session, and the video that derailed her momentum. And she sets the record straight on the story everyone thinks they know — she was never dropped. She asked to be let go.

Then there's now: My Love Story, produced by Children of Zeus, released on her own label Wings of a Hummingbird, straight to number one on iTunes, remixed end-to-end by Zed Bias. She's signing artists, planning a festival, and refusing to play a show until the money's right.

Her advice to anyone coming up in the age of AI? Retreat into who you are. The machine can't imitate what you haven't done yet.