Wikipedia:Today's featured article/January 31, 2023
Leah LaBelle (September 8, 1986 – January 31, 2018) was an American singer. Born in Toronto, Ontario, and raised in Seattle, Washington, she began pursuing music as a career in her teens, which included performing in the Total Experience Gospel Choir. LaBelle rose to prominence in 2004 as a contestant on the third season of American Idol, placing twelfth in the season finals. Attending the Berklee College of Music for a year, she dropped out to move to Los Angeles. Starting in 2007, LaBelle recorded covers of R&B and soul music for her YouTube channel. These videos led to work as a backing vocalist starting in 2008 and a record deal in 2011 with Epic in partnership with I Am Other and So So Def Recordings. LaBelle released a sampler, three singles, and a posthumous extended play (EP), and received the Soul Train Centric Award at the 2012 Soul Train Music Awards. In 2018, LaBelle and her boyfriend Rasual Butler died in a car crash in Los Angeles. (Full article...)