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Chanté Moore:  BEAUTIFUL

A testament to her raw talent and natural ability, Chanté Moore has never had any formal vocal training and her high-pitch crooning is something she discovered by chance. “I was just messing around, trying to do fun stuff because it was my joy to sing. I started playing around with things and that came out,” she says. Chanté has undeniable talent with a soulful voice that ranges more than four octaves and a piercing whistle register that soars to levels few have achieved and mastered. Describing her voice as a bit airy and emotional, Chanté says she hopes people feel her heart when she sings.

 

Chanté says her most heartfelt song is “Don’t Make Me Laugh,” a track from “Moore is More,” her new album. “It’s very revealing in my heart, my life, my pain. What I’ve been through in the past five years is in that song,” she says. Viewers got a glimpse into Chanté’s life as she offered up a strong personality on TV One’s hit reality show, “R&B Divas LA.” But even through the drama, antics and revealing monologues, the entertainer’s true hardships were never fully exposed. Chanté and singer Kenny Latimore divorced in 2011 and she says the broken marriage left her feeling sad and heartbroken. True to style, though, Chanté channeled her emotions not just into one song, but into an entire compilation.

 

“Moore is More,” which was released in July, is a journey of Chanté’s love life and one of the album’s songs,  “Mrs. Under Stood” is inspired by the gossip Chanté has heard about her private relationships. “I know what people say. And it’s really a song that lets me understand myself because I get it,” she admits. Before marrying Kenny, Chanté married and divorced actor Kadeem Hardison, and her failed relationships left her subject to gossip. “Golly. How many times is she going to do this? Aint’t she been married before? How many men is she going to mess up?” she says, imitating her critics. The negativity does affect her, but Chanté says she is okay with revealing her life and having opinions formed about it and she has always recorded songs and made or written songs that speak from her heart and where she is in life.

Writing and singing is therapeutic for the vocalist and when she finished recording “Moore is More,” Chanté felt triumphant. “It wasn’t just, ‘Oh. I’m in the dumps and here’s this really sad album I’m making.’ It was a process from the brokenhearted to lifting myself up again and really realizing who I am as a woman by myself,” she shares. In addition to her song collection, that cathartic process also inspired a book. Chanté says she had several unanswered questions about her relationship and she was trying to determine the faults in her mate. But she realized that she should ask the Lord for help in understanding her own flaws. Chanté learned to stop blaming others and to look inward and work on strengthening her personal weaknesses. “It’s not really about pointing the finger at anybody else,” she explains assertively. “It’s really about yourself and figuring out how do you become the best you and take responsibility for yourself.”

 

Chanté questions, “If you turned around and made a list of your own traits and looked at them, would you marry yourself just off the paper?” Appropriately, her book is titled, “Will I Marry Me?”. Chanté clarifies that the book isn’t about teaching women. It’s about having them look at themselves and discover themselves. Chanté says when she discovered herself, she realized that she’s happy alone. “I’m just happy just being here and not looking for the next adventure, the next boyfriend or the next anything,” she proudly declares. “Chanté loves having a man. That’s great. But that’s not the only part of who I am, that’s not the only place that I excel.”

 

Indeed, Chanté has excelled in a career spanning three decades and boasting the critically acclaimed “Wey U,” and hits like “Love’s Taken Over” and “Chanté’s Got a Man.” The songstress has also garnered several award nominations and wins. Chanté earned an American Music Award, a Soul Train Award and an NAACP Image Award for various songs. And, she received a Grammy nod for the Isley Brothers hit, “Contagious” on which she was featured with R. Kelly. Still, Chanté has not quite seen the success of some other vocal powerhouses. But she’s content. “I think when it’s time for you to succeed and God says, ‘It’s time for the doors to open,’ they open. And if this is how much He wanted me to have, this is how much I’m supposed to have,” she explains. “I cannot complain, honestly. I want more. And that’s okay because we all want more. But I don’t feel slighted or underrated.”

 

Chanté says she appreciates those who truly love her music and it’s a pleasure when people say she should have more recognition. But Chanté is fulfilling her career ambitions simply by singing songs from her heart. “I just wanted to sing songs that I believed in—sing songs that really reflected who I was. From the very beginning, I just wanted people to feel my heart more than anything. I’m a very resilient person and God made me that way. I think that’s also why I sing songs that represent who I am and the truth in me. Music is a beautiful, beautiful broad forum, so I believe if we take what’s inside of us and pour it out, it can be very beautiful, whether it’s gospel or love songs.”

 

Chanté wants to keep recording beautiful music and making songs that make her happy. “I don’t have a specific goal like, ‘I need to win a Grammy’ or ‘I need six more records’ or ‘I need this amount of number of sales,’” she reiterates. “I just want to be working, doing what I love, and being in peace.” She also wants her two children to be happy and she’s gigging to ensure that they have money and college funds. “That’s really what’s most important for me right now,” she says.

 

The singer feels that she still has more to do with her calling. So even though she is content with her success, she confesses that she would be disappointed if her career ended now.  “I’ve been blessed. I believe I’m on a journey and I’m not at the end yet. I think the best is yet to come for real. And that sounds so cliché. All of those sound so cliché. But the reason why they’re cliché is because they are true,” says Chanté with a laugh. “But I do really believe the best is yet to come.”

 

DELUX Magazine
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