“Music is something I can go to on a day to day basis and really connect to what I’m listening to” said OJW Alumna Shailla Head as she reflected on her relationship with music after making a surprise return visit to OJW. “I’ll hear a phrase of what someone says and if that phrase is in a certain song I will bust out and sing the whole song. That’s how in love I am with music.”
Shailla didn’t speak very much as a young child but at the age of three she began singing alongside her grandmother in church. By the time she was six years old she was regularly singing before her pastor’s sermons, often times visiting as many as three different churches a week.
At one of her featured performances for an MLK Day celebration in Oakland, her keyboard accompanist did not show up for the concert, but Shailla was determined to perform her song and began singing a’capella without him. Oaktown Jazz was waiting in the wings to go on next but soon after Shailla started her song OJW’s Founding Director Khalil Shaheed began playing trumpet softly beneath her voice and then motioned to Oaktown Jazz Workshops’ young musicians to join in. Pretty soon all of OJW’s musicians had picked up on the tune and were accompanying Shailla before the packed audience.
After the performance Khalil reached out to her grandmother and invited Shaillah to join OJW’s Youth Performance Ensemble. Once Shailla joined OJW she quickly began adding jazz standards to her repertoire of gospel songs and for the next three years she became the featured vocalist for Oaktown Jazz, performing at community events all over the San Francisco Bay Area.
After 7th grade Shailla moved with her grandmother to Atlanta, GA. She continued singing in church and at school, but not finding an afterschool musical outlet like OJW, she began to focus more of her energy on playing for her school’s basketball team.
After completing High School Shailla received a full scholarship to Alabama A&M University where she will graduate with a Bachelor of Music in May 2021.
“I don’t know what I would do without music.”