The Floacist
| The Floacist | |
|---|---|
| Birth name | Natalie Stewart |
| Born |
February 13, 1979 London |
| Origin | South London, UK |
| Genres | R&B, soul, spoken word, neo-soul |
| Occupation(s) | Singer-songwriter, rapper, poet, music producer, actress |
| Years active | 1997–present |
| Labels | Shanachie Records, DreamWorks, Geffen |
| Associated acts | Floetry, Marsha Ambrosius, Raheem DeVaughn |
| Website | www |
Natalie “The Floacist” Stewart (born February 13, 1979) is an English singer-songwriter, poet, and actress. Born and raised in London, she performed in various singing and dancing competitions as a child, and rose to fame in the early 2000s as part of R&B girl-duo Floetry. Their hiatus saw the release of Stewart’s debut album, Floetic Soul (2010), which established her as a solo artist worldwide; which featured the singles "Forever" and "Let Me".
Following her establishment of her solo career, she released her second solo album, Floetry Re:Birth (2012), which contained hits "Say Yes", "Soul", and "Speechless". In 2014, Stewart released her third solo album Rise of the Phoenix Mermaid.
A self-described "modern-day poet", The Floacist creates songs that are often characterized by themes of love, relationships, and inspiration, as well as problems and solutions. Throughout a career spanning 16 years, she has sold over 2 million records.
The Floacist is the daughter of Jamaican immigrants. With her father in the British Armed Forces, she was born into a travelling family. The youngest of three children, she was born in Germany, started school in Hong Kong. After her father left the army, the family settled in London. She attended the BRIT School for Performing Arts and Technology, where Marsha Ambrosius was studying Business and Finance. The Floacist studied Performing Arts, Media and Art. She attended Middlesex University, and later transferred to the University of North London. She was a founding member of the performance poetry group 3 Plus 1, which was critically well received in London, Birmingham, and Manchester. The Floacist found her true calling on the performance poetry scene, where she was able to natural merge all of her artistic expressional outputs as a writer and performer. This led to the manifestation of her Floetic ethos of 'poetic delivery of musical intent'.
Floetry was formed after Ambrosius joined her on stage in 1999 to perform at a spoken word night called Poets vs MC's, where they debuted a piece that they had written together called "Fantasize", combining spoken word and singing.
In 2000, the duo traveled to the United States to perform on the poetry circuit. After frequenting spoken word/poetry spots in Atlanta, such as Yin Yang Poets' Cafe, they moved on to Philadelphia. There they met Darren "Limitless" Henson and Keith "Keshon" Pelzer of DJ Jazzy Jeff's Touch of Jazz studio and began recording.
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