Where are you from and how has it affected your music?

Charisse Mills: I’m from Trinidad and Tobago originally. Being from Caribbean descent it has affected my music because I was involved with rhythm and sound from a very young age. I was raised in Queens, New York, being there it made me tough and able to manage this music game. Now I live in Los Angeles and I get to meet a lot produces and I’m a lot more focused because I don’t know anyone out here.

What made you decide to use your legal name as your stage?

Charisse Mills: I’m not one that believe in changing who you are. Who I am is what I want my fans to get to know. Charisse Mills was born to be Charisse Mills. From young when teachers would introduce my name they would be like “you’re going to be great, your name is great.” I didn’t want to stray away from that at all.

When did you know that singing was for you?

Charisse Mills: At the age of 15. I started classical musical music at a very old age. Most artist in the classical work, their parents bring them in at the age of five on the piano. I always had a passion for being in front of the camera. I was never shy, always involved in every extracurricular activity. Having Caribbean parents they always stressed school work, I started out as a math major, my mother wanted me to be a lawyer, doctor, accountant, anything but entertainment.

My second year in high school is when I changed my major. I was taking my extracurricular class, choir, and my director was a concert pianist and I was his protégé. He trained me when he heard my talent and he asked did I have classical training, I replied no, and that day forward my life changed. I told my mom I was after school rehearsing but she didn’t know what for. If I would have told her music she would have been like “hell no!” She came to my first concert when I was raising money for college. She cried through my entire performance and what she heard me sing live she was like, “Ok Charisse, I support you 100% for your music.”

You love the opera and classical music. Are there any other influences to your career?

Charisse Mills: I give all praise and thanks to my choir director, Mr. Steven Kaplan. He’s one of those golden teachers that puts his all into his students to make them better. He would be after school for hours training me, giving me lessons, gave an introduction to my vocal teacher Anita Darian. She’s now passed away but she took me on in her late 70s and she told me “I want to train you,” in her Armenian accent, cause she saw something in me. She told me out of principle to give her $1, she was teaching me principles. That’s why I give back and try to influence the youth because they influenced me.

You have worked with Ne-Yo and he would support, you how is that?

Charisse Mills: It’s a blessing to be recognized by these greats. I became a Pop-Opera artist because I didn’t look like your traditional classical singer. If I auditioned over the phone or by tape they would bring me in then when they would see me they would change my role  because of how I looked. What I did was create my own lane, where I looked like the pop artist, but I’m a classical singer too. Most people want something easy or what sounds like something already and there was nothing like me. I said you know what, I’m going to develop it myself, it may take a little longer but if this is something the Lord said you’re going to do, this is what you’re going to do.

I have been developing myself for three years and I met Ne-Yo, all these wonderful people in the business, and they saw the same something that my teachers back in high school saw in me and they are like you are more than a beautiful face with a fat ass. You actually have talent, you can sing, you’re smart, I’m going to give you a chance. “I don’t put people on, I think you deserve it,” that’s what Ne-Yo told my mother. It brought tears to her eyes when he told her that.