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Hey, I'm Antonique Smith. I'm in one of the best cities in the world, New York City
I grew up in East orange New Jersey, birth place of Whitney Houston too, she's my favorite
as a kid
I would make puppet shows and voices like on acting side style
in my grandmother's living room
and then i heard Whitney Houston's voice, that made me want to sing
so I would practice to her song and try to imitate her and that's how I learned how to sing
and then one-day, someone heard me singing and then asked to be my agent
and from that agent I got my first job on 100th sinner's street with Sydney Lumet
and he gave my like the biggest compliment ever
that led to Rent on Broadway, which led to Notorious and other things
and now, I'm working on my music
i've always wanted to do movies and tv and things like that and i didn't even
realize how much
being in rent was going to prepare me for that because
it's the repetition of doing the same show
eight times a week
if one person was paying 100 dollars
I want the next person who's paying 100 dollars to see the same show they got yesterday. so I really went on hard to try to
you know give that that eight shows what we call it and so that repetition
made it a little easier when i got on the set of Notorious. I left rent and two weeks later
I did an audition for notorious and got it. For my second audition, BIG smiled and said
"that's Faith."
it was a blessing that i got it. I really felt that it was my role
I'm just grateful, I'm a part of B.I.G's legacy. I'm a part of Jonathan Larson's legacy
My whole journey has been really awesome
actually always thought i needed to do music first because it seemed traditionally to
like it was easier to be a singer and then moving to acting than it was to be
an actor move in the singing
so i almost fought the path of being an actor because i was like I gotta sing
I gotta do my music and then I was just like ok
seems like maybe God
tell me something so i follow the path of acting
which led me to play Faith Evans in Notorious. She's an R&B icon
I couldn't have planned it, I just have to follow
some people recognize that i was singing in Notorious i was trying to sound like Faith
so some people thought i was lip singing
but the few that recognized that I was singing in notorious were already kind of on it and
trying to see what i was doing and watching videos and then
we're bridging the gap now for the people who just know me as the actress
we started buying doing kick start a campaign. I raised over fifty thousand
dollars in thirty days from my fans and thank you guys so much
I've been in the studio with jukebox who did "whip my hair" for willow smith. We got some crazy
song together Toby Gad who did "If I were a boy" for Beyonce
Danger hands you know there's justin timberlake timberland. Dr Dre
gave me a track that you know helped
define the part of the sound that we were missing. you know
I've beena a singer since i was a kid obviously i've been singing in church in church
but i've never had my own sound and never had what
musically made me
different than everybody else. me and my manager has been tinking around in the studio
and we found it we found it. I have my own sound. it's just so clear and i'm just really
excited for everybody to hear it
i'd like to call it
pop soul with a hip-hop appeal. with hip-hop under it because i grew up on mary j you know, hip hop soul
and i sang in church that's really where the soul comes from and the beats you
know hard
and i love colplay you know big pop chords you know big hip-hop aggressions
that fusion
is what kinda makes my sound different
i cannot wait to like tour and things like that
I'm really excited i love it. I have so much fun there's a of couple songs that i'm doing that
i'd just feel so powerful singing them and that was important to me
that my music was me because i was like people are seeing me as other people all of the time
I want them to get Antonique 100% my experiences, my
joys, my pains. I have some adele moments in there
you know I want them to get antonique
hey I'm antonique smith and you're watching blastro