April 9,2021 – Nolo Grace is a Korean-American singer/songwriter/producer making her debut with “Wake Up,” featuring Sean Kingston. Kingston is known for his Billboard Hot 100 song “Beautiful Girls” and other hit songs like “Fire Burning” and “Eenie Meanie.” Nolo Grace charted an unconventional path into music. After building a business career as a successful corporate executive in New York City, she decided to leave that behind and lived around the world as a digital nomad before moving to Los Angeles in 2017.
“”Wake Up” is about having the courage to leave something behind you know isn’t right for you and trusting it will all work out. I spent so much of my life chasing a phantom idea of success that was never my own, burning myself out working 100-hour weeks for dreams that weren’t my own, and believing that if I pushed myself hard, I would one day achieve success and be happy. What I’ve learned through my journey of personal growth is that miracles can happen when you live and act from a place of love and openness. The opportunity to collaborate with Sean Kingston is a case in point. It all happened so effortlessly and organically.”
Drawing on pop, R&B, hip hop, and experimental genres, Nolo Grace has crafted her own signature form of dreamy electronic alt-pop. She draws inspiration from a wide range of sources, from sampling and manipulating the sounds of everyday life to the Western canon of music, Top 40 radio, and time spent in over 40 countries. Her sound is hypnotic and current—a layer of atmospheric synths, vocal pads, and punchy drums. In her process, she tries to approach music like a child exploring sound, often starting tracks spontaneously using her own voice and building from there. Her catchy melodies serve up thought-provoking lyrics about personal transformation and empowerment.
Nolo Grace’s earliest memories involve wanting to make music, begging her parents for piano lessons when she was 3 years old. She attended the Tanglewood Institute for voice and traveled around the world performing in choirs during high school. Growing up the child of two Korean immigrants in a stormy and violent home, security was always an issue, and music was discouraged and became associated with trauma. She left home at 14 for boarding school and established security in establishing a successful business career working on Wall Street, in software, and the political sphere internationally. No matter the advancements and promise she showed as a young executive, she knew deep down that her true life purpose was music and expressing herself creatively. She ultimately reached a critical point and knew she needed to make a change.
This kicked off a period of profound transformation. She left her old life behind in NYC and started traveling around the world, one one-way last-minute flight booked at a time. It was a period of both solitude and connection, a delicate but golden time when she connected with people and an identity that felt truer to herself. She started her own business, a deep spiritual practice, developed into a singer-songwriter, and learned guitar. She ultimately settled in Los Angeles.
Discovering music production and Ableton was completely life-changing for her in the personal and creative growth and collaborative relationships she was able to foster. She married music producer Martin Wave in 2020 at the start of the pandemic. The couple released their solo artist projects (Nolo Grace, Lars Martin). Through their relationship and the intensity of the recent period of quarantine, they have learned to express and embrace their own voices, gaining greater clarity into themselves as individuals, creators, and a creative couple navigating the balance between independence and interdependence.