La – Nai & Free The People
La-Nai Gabriel is a talented young multi-instrumentalist, composer and songwriter. A first-generation Canadian, she was born to proud parents who immigrated from St.Vincent and The Grenadines to Toronto, eventually settling in Markham, Ontario. La-Nai was destined to become the only musician in her family. She quickly developed a love of classical music, but as she got older she started paying more attention to not only the music her family was listening to — Soca, Calypso, and Reggae music from the West Indies — but also the Pop, Rock and Hip-Hop music that her peers were listening to. Curently, La-Nai fronts her own original Reggae/Neo-Soul group La-Nai and The Free People.
The Free People are a group of talented, young and multi-cultural musicians who are putting a new edge on Neo-Soul and Reggae music from Toronto. La-Nai created The Free People in 2009 as her way to write and perform music that reflected her main influences. That mission statement led to her fusing the characteristic rhythms of Reggae or Hip Hop, the atypical chord structures and progressions of Jazz, and soulful, powerful vocals reminiscent of the Soul and Neo-Soul greats that she loves into her visions and stories about life, love, morality, choices, and political and social awareness. La-Nai and The Free People released their first full-length album “Get Ready” in 2012.
