As she prepares to take her place on center stage, Elle Varner sees no limit to her possibilities. After honing her skills even further, Varner became one of the first artists featured in BET's Music Matters campaign for 2010. In October 2009, she signed with MBK/J-RCA Records, along with a co-publishing agreement with Sony Music. In 2008, Varner graduated from NYU's renowned Clive Davis Department of Recorded Music. Upon graduating, she was awarded "most likely to get signed" and "most likely to win a Grammy." Four years later, she finds herself a well-rounded and cultured singer-songwriter. Not only did she get in, but also she was admitted into the second class of the Clive Davis Department of Recorded Music. With that, Varner applied to NYU and was accepted. Through this program she was taken weekly to the Fox Studio, where she met with mentor Kelly Burgos, and President of Fox Music, Robert Kraft. Varner was surprised to discover, she had been chosen to be a part of The Grammy in the Schools Mentoring Program. Once there, she learned about the complexity of the voice, jazz music and talented jazz artists Ella Fitzgerald.
Frustrated that she was not instantly successful, she dropped the guitar and became a part of Alexander Hamilton High School's Academy of Music's Vocal Jazz Group. “Sometimes, I’ll just be humming a tune off the top of my head and it will turn into something bigger.” Such was the case with the song, “Refill.At the age of 16, Varner picked up the guitar for the first time.
“I keep my phone on-hand so I can record whatever sound or phrase comes to me because I never know when it’s coming or where it’s coming from,” she says of her creative process. Like many songwriters who’ve come before her, Elle admits that ideas reveal themselves in different forms, at different times and places. Crafting the album also proved to be a full-circle moment for the 22-year-old singer/songwriter as she enlisted the help of her parents – Jimmy Varner and Mikelyn Roderick – both of whom contributed their production and vocal arrangement talents and pushed Elle toward, and beyond, the bounds of her creativity. With the release of her debut album, Perfectly Imperfect (MBK Entertainment/RCA Records), which she wrote and co-produced, it’s evident that her early experiences have served her well. Shortly thereafter, Elle was discovered by MBK Entertainment, honed her skills even further and eventually became one of the first artists featured in BET’s Music Matters campaign for 2010. “To be recognized for my talent in a program that only selects 24 students per class, out of thousands, was like, ‘Wow!’ I knew that I had really stepped up to the plate,” says Elle. Earning a coveted spot in New York University’s Clive Davis Program of Recorded Music was further proof that she was headed in the right direction. The song, which she played with one string on the guitar, scored the top prize at a local talent show. Everything from me comes from the most basic point of musical understanding.”Īt 11, she joined the Amazing Grace Conservatory and by 15, she penned her first song, entitled, “Thankful,” while studying at the Academy of Music at Hamilton High School. Sometimes, when you know too much about an instrument, you can get lost in that. “I wasn’t very disciplined about practicing when I was younger, which I think was a blessing in disguise,” notes Elle, who eventually taught herself to play the guitar and now plays “drums, guitar, a little bass, a little piano and flute. Soon after, she had a short-lived moment with the flute, followed by formal piano lessons.
That was the spark that ignited her drive to pursue the arts. Born in Los Angeles proper and raised throughout southern California’s city limits, Elle, now a resident of Brooklyn, recalls the first time she really heard her own voice – she was nine years old and singing in her church’s youth choir.
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