Rene Byrd and her continued growth through lockdown

Rene Byrd is a kind, talented musician, who has continued to diversify her reach and influence due to lockdown. Music has been Rene’s passion since she was very young, she credits Gospel music and her father being signed to RCA Records as some of her biggest influences. When she was a child, she used to watch her father on TV. She used to be at some of their concerts with the likes of Sade and Sting to name a few.

With the help of her Uncle Linton, she made her first recording when she was young. However, she was very nervous singing in public and around her father. Fortunately, they all said her voice was “amazing”. She went on to study sociology with elements of law. She says it was “the sensible thing to do”. Because she is an independent artist and much of her work is self-funded. Having a background in the corporate world helped her as well.

Rene said her first live performance was “nerve-racking, scary but exciting” as she “enjoys entertaining people.” But performing for the first time was also nerve-racking as you have loads of people in front of you and you do not know whether it’s going to be good, bad, or indifferent, but as the nerves go away you just feed off the crowd’s energy”. During lockdown Rene said she broadened her horizon to make sure her family is even closer” with communication such as zoom calls. From a musical perspective her song “Born again”, which was released in February 2020 and is also an adaptation of a song by Syreeta and Billy Preston from 1976.

Things were looking promising until Covid took effect in March of last year. However, she still wanted to find a way to reach people, and with the help of her brother Tez-lee part of their music production company, they created Who am I talk. An Instagram live talk show where people from different industries talk about their stories and come-ups. She has had guests like Sir Patrick Hutchinson, an activist, author and personal trainer, and Chris Collins, a former Ralph Lauren model and now Luxury Fragrance owner. If Covid was not a thing Rene would have hoped that Born again ’s song campaign would have taken off. She also hoped to tour around the world.

However, due to a lot of the world shifting online Rene’s visibility had increased. leading to her getting much more media attention her reach exploded to over 1 million across her socials. Sadly, Rene caught Covid along with her Mother. But thankfully both were able to recover, she credits being a person of faith and medicine for her recovery. Rene is also an ambassador for the Nelson Mandela Children’s Fund UK and has worked with them for over a decade. She said, “she didn’t know watching the apartheid movement and him as a president, that one day she would be representing his charity”. And that it “blows her mind because he was an incredible man “.

In terms of the future, Rene hopes to continue putting out content, her song Born again is being plugged for a global radio campaign on the 5th of April and has loads of business partnerships due to the success of Who am I talk.

Be sure to check out all that she has going on as it was nothing short of a pleasure interviewing such a lovely and motivating person.