HAIR
BY DAY,
SINGING
BY
NIGHT
Rechell Cook
Makes People
“Look Good
and Feel
Good”
By Dean M. Shapiro
Rechell Cook has two careers and she loves both of them
equally.
With a daytime job as a hair stylist and a nighttime job
as a singer, she proudly states, “Being a hair stylist and a singer
are definitely two of the things I’ve always wanted to do. So I
feel blessed because they are not like jobs to me. I am absolutely
doing what I enjoy most.”
And, for emphasis, she adds, “I love making people look good
and I love making people feel good.”
A product of New Orleans’ Lower Ninth Ward, Rechell got
into singing early in life. Her love for the voice started in church
and in the chorus at John F. Kennedy High School. Singing was
also in the family genes. Her mother and her mother’s two sisters
sang in a vocal group in the 1970s and early ‘80s, and the vocal
gift dated back several generations to some of her uncles, her
grandmother, great-grandmother, and great-aunt.
Today as the lead vocalist in her own band, as well as onethird
of the Ladies of Soul trio (with Naydja Cojoe and Sharon
Martin), Rechell says, “I’m always thankful for an opportunity
to perform, whatever or wherever it is. It’s definitely not about
money but you just never know where an opportunity can lead
you.”
Just such an “opportunity” was what got her up on stage and
out in front of people in the first place. It was in the early 2000s
when one of the singers in the male trio, Elaté (pronounced e lot
tay), Steven “Cardé” Payton, asked her to join their group as a
female vocalist. Payton had previously heard her sing at a talent
show he coordinated for WYLD radio in 1998.
As she recalls, “He remembered me from that talent show
and then, some years later, I ran into him again. He said he was
getting his singing group back together and would love to have
a female but just didn’t know who. He told me they had been
working with a few different ladies but it wasn’t working out. He
invited me to join them and it was just on after that.
“And that’s how I got started because somebody just gave me
a chance,” Rechell continued. “So I always try to encourage
that and give other people a chance. If I’m having a show and
somebody tells me, ‘Oh, this person can sing. Can they come up
PHOTOGRAPHY BY BIONCA FLOT SYKES
12 | BREAKTHRU MEDIA | breakthrumediamagazine.com MARC H / A P R I L 2 0 1 8
/breakthrumediamagazine.com
