R&B Singer Lucia Cole Talks New Album, Tyler Perry And Rough Childhood

Lucia Cole Escaped Violent Childhood To Realize Her Music Dreams

She may only be 22, but Lucia Cole has already endured more than her share of heartache.

The former child star turned singer said she had it tough growing up in the Midwest. She witnessed her father batter her mother before he left the family all together when she was just seven years old.

But the Arkansas native is channeling that experience into her music. Cole says she is now signed to Universal and just released a new R&B/pop single, “All That Matters,” and she’s got a new sound, new label and a budding acting career.

“I think I use music as a medium,” she said, “to channel how I’m feeling from that point on.”

Next month, Cole will shoot the music video for “All That Matters,” has a five song EP coming out in July and is in talks with Tyler Perry to appear in an upcoming film.

But Cole’s life today is a far cry from her early years, which were in part shaped by the violence she witnessed in her household.

“There was a lot of physical abuse going on between my mom and my dad,” Cole, whose mother is Italian, and whose father is African-American, told BOSSIP. “My mom, she would try to hide what was going on, but we would catch flashes.”

As she got older, her parents’ relationship continued to break down.

“There would be a lot of tension in the house,” Cole recalled. “From five years old until about seven, it just got worse. It came to a point where I’d wake up in the middle of the night, and my mother would have bruises all over her arms.”

One day, her mother had enough, and packed her father’s bags. He left, and Cole said she hasn’t seen him since, and the loss was something that has deeply affected her.

“I think that it did have an affect on me, emotionally,” Cole said. “I think it made me somewhat vulnerable to a man’s influence. It made it harder to open up to a male figure.”

Cole’s advice to others who grew up in a situation like her own, is simple:

“Try to generate it into something positive,” she said. “Don’t dwell in your sorrow.”

Update:

The profile was written by one of Bossip’s highly experienced journalists.

We love doing new artist profiles and conducted a phoner after being pitched an “up from her bootstraps” angle.

As with all our exclusives, we conducted standard vetting which included outreach to PR reps and background received from her “manager”—iTunes, Google Play, Amazon, Wiki-profile—which helped to legitimize that she was indeed an up and coming artist.

It’s unfortunate that whomever falsely presented themselves as “Lucia Cole” took advantage of our interests in highlighting artists in this way. – Janeé Bolden, Managing Editor BOSSIP.com