TUELO

Tuelo is a singer and songwriter creating in the space between rock, punk, and soul. She carries her traditional South African influences and polyrhythms along with her in every part of her bold and winding raw sound that can be dubbed revival rock - a place for seekers, and a take on rock that brings the cultures of travelers and migrants, like her, alive. Tuelo’s music tells stories with piercing vulnerability, a rebellious passion, and captivating voice which inspired the Huffington Post to dub her "New York's Best Singer (and the world’s)!”.

Tuelo's musical journey took root from birth with the traditions of her native Tswana and Khoikhoi tribes, but it wasn’t until she ventured alone to New York City that she ever considered herself a musician, teaching herself guitar as a way to connect her writing to music. Her vocal talent was discovered by chance when she accompanied a friend to an audition to sing for Hugh Masekela. This led to subsequent work as a vocalist with appearances on The Late Show with David Letterman and Grammy winning albums like Angelique Kidjo’s Eve and Sings. During this time, she frequented open-mic nights in New York City to test out her own music, and in 2015 formed a band “Tuelo and Her Cousins” and created an homage album to her homeland. Subsequently, she and her friend and co-creator Kevin Wenzel, released her multi-genre EP Saint Margaret in 2017, the title track of which premiered on Consequence of Sound and was described by Afropunk as “an inspiring and spiritual experience.” Tuelo wrote the song as a letter memorializing and seeking courage from the Saint who is her mother who lives in the rural and remote Northwest Province of South Africa. Saint Margaret was a way for Tuelo to feel her mother's presence while living an often incomprehensible and starkly different life in NYC and around the world from her humble upbringing in the remote African countryside.

Over the next few years, working and living between New York, Berlin, Johannesburg, and Medellín, Tuelo and Kevin took what they learned from the response to the EP and picked from Tuelo’s huge song bank to create The Life of Margaret Cornelius, Tuelo’s debut studio album set to be released in January 2022. The album is a series of vignettes of Margaret Cornelius, Tuelo’s alter ego and the influence of Tuelo’s writing and activism. Of The Life of Margaret Cornelius, Tuelo writes:

“There have been instances when I wished I had been saved from many situations, where circumstances were too difficult -- either because I was a child or life was too chaotic -- that I had to save myself. Those times, some I wish never to utter to a single human for fear of tainting them, I can see now how my ancestor Margaret Cornelius was looking over me. This is “sleep with one eye open” music, because that is how I learned to sleep. The truth is: the same way people think about what they would do if they won the lottery, I day-dream about situations where I would be saving someone. If money weren’t an obstacle I would be saving people everyday - from small situations and big ones. I would be a superhero most of the day... except for meals. This is why I am often a hungry dreamer lost in an unreal world of superheroes.”