Deesha

Deesha Sarai, born in Toronto, Ontario, is a Canadian singer/songwriter/producer. The youngest child of Indian immigrant parents, Deesha grew up with traditional expectations and not so typical dreams. As a little girl she would lock herself in her bathroom and sing to the tunes of Whitney Houston hoping nobody would hear her. During commercial breaks watching the Grammys, Deesha would race to her bedroom to give her own acceptance speech to an audience of one, ripe with the emotion and tears only a true artist could understand. But no one knew how bad she really wanted it, not even Deesha.

Deesha spent most of her time doing what was expected, getting straight A's and overachieving. She began attending university at the age of 17 on a full scholarship and by the time she was 23 had graduated from law school. Her parents beamed with pride but Deesha was unhappy and feeling empty. And so she started making her way back to her first love ? music. It was finally time to do what she wanted and so she walked away from what she was groomed to become and started from scratch. ?This was probably one the hardest decisions I have ever had to make. Nobody understood. I didn't have support from anyone really. To this day people think I'm crazy but I'm done making compromises for other people.?

While her parents may not have understood, she was lucky to have a brother that equally shared
her passion for music. Together they wrote and produced her first single ?Dried My Eyes?. Deesha
wrote it and her brother produced the track. ?I was driving into downtown one day and it came on the radio. I had no one to share the moment with?. Deesha recalls the first time she heard it on the radio. ?I didn't have a cell phone so I couldn't call anyone so I sat there by myself and took in how cool it was knowing that millions of people were hearing my song at that exact moment.?

?Dried My Eyes? was featured on Canada's MuchMusic, and played frequently on KISS 92.5 (Toronto's largest commercial station) and CBC Radio, as well as a number of compilation spots (mp3.com's Urban Music Compilation,GarageBand Records' R&B Evolved, Best of R&B). At that time, Deesha also began making appearances on several of her brother's South Asian music projects with releases
Globe and featuring some of the biggest names in South Asian music.

Fast forward 4 years. After countless demos and countless rejections Deesha realized that her latest
demo didn't sound much like a demo at all. With the help of a production duo from Detroit,
Michigan, Deesha decided that her songs had the makings of an album and ?Life Less Ordinary? was
born. It began with her first single ?Falling In Love? which, unexpected to Deesha, took the Canadian airwaves by storm. ?Falling In Love? became an instant summer anthem and was charting with some of the biggest names in the world, yet Deesha still could not catch the attention of the industry. Not knowing when or how to quit, she forked over her own hard earned money to shoot a video to this much loved song. ?It was the greatest feeling to know that people loved the song but nobody had any idea who I was. I would have conversations with people that would tell me how much they loved the song and they would be shocked when I would tell them that it was me singing it. My own friends had no clue. So I figured if no one else was going to believe at the very least I had to.?

While her life as an artist was beginning to pick up steam, her personal life was a very different story
and after finally completing her debut album, Deesha unintentionally shelved it to get her life together. ?It took me a while to get out of a situation where I was broke and really had no place to go. I'm lucky that I have a great sister and a forgiving niece who let me hijack her 8x6 closet of a room for 6 months.?

Even still, in 2005, Deesha's collaboration with Canadian rapper Arabesque on ?Stardust? became a
heavily rotated single and much applauded video. By the beginning of 2006, Deesha had
independently released 2 singles, won several songwriting competition accolades, written for a
major label artist, and had become a constant on the now defunct MTV Desi. Having hosted and
performed on the ?Live from Puerto Rico? special, as well as ?Maximum Party,? Deesha was invited to
co-host the MTV Desi ?Top 10 Desi Countdown.? She was also featured on an artist spotlight on MTV
news that year.

Finally in October of 2006, ?Life Less Ordinary" saw its debut. This was no ordinary debut. Completely self-penned, co-produced and independently released, ?Life Less Ordinary? garnered the respect it deserved and was nominated for the 2007 Juno Awards as Best R&B/Soul Recording of the Year.

Leading up to the awards, CTV, one of Canada's largest television networks, and MTV Canada,
invited Deesha to host her own segment as she shopped for her first ever red carpet.

In 2008, Deesha read her name in the credits of the Oscar nominated film, ?TheWrestler?, directed by
Darren Aronofsky and starring Mickey Rourke and Marisa Tomei. Her song ?Let Your Freak
Out? can be heard playing during one of the most revealing scenes of the movie.

Now, in the year 2012, Deesha too is ready to reveal her most intimate self with what can best
be described as an emotional retro-electro-pop journey through heartbreak, hope and love. From
the synth infused ?Lovesick' to the painfully honest ?Let Me Go?, Deesha's sophomore release
will be an unexpected surprise to many, but as far as Deesha is concerned, she has finally found her voice. Inspired by the sounds of her youth, including Pop, Rock and R&B, Deesha is itching to put it all on the line. ?I have never been more proud of anything I have created?ever.?