Raised in a home heavily saturated in music, Maria “M.Free” Freeman wanted to be a singer ever since she could remember. She was challenged by family members to listen to and learn about various genres of music, not just the latest songs on popular radio stations. One of her earliest memories is of her and her grandfather having riffing competitions. “I was only about eight or nine years old and he would say ‘I bet you can’t ‘wiggle’ your voice like this’, and I would eagerly try to duplicate the notes he sang.” One musician or another was always blaring from the record player in the living room, and Maria absorbed the music without even knowing it.

 

When Maria was twelve, her grandmother took her to a Morgan State University Choir Christmas concert. After hearing live singers for the first time, she was hooked and began to practice every day hoping to develop a voice as beautiful as the ones she’d heard that night. She knew that there was nothing else she would rather do.

 

As Maria became older, she participated in as many music based activities as she could. By her first year in high school she found herself on six different choirs at one time, including the choir of a high school that she was not even enrolled in. Maria was hungry for music and tried to soak it up any way she could. Maria was also heavily influenced by Hip Hop. She would memorize the verses of artists like TuPac, Nas, Biggie and Lauren Hill and often fall asleep with headphones blasting shows like Strictly Hip Hop (WEAA Baltimore).

 

After graduating from high school, Maria enrolled in Morgan State University to pursue a Music degree. She also became a member of their world renowned choir, the same choir that wowed her years earlier. After five years of vocal coaching, vocal training and traveling abroad, Maria graduated from Morgan State University in 2005.

 

Maria has evolved into “M.Free”, a skilled vocalist, songwriter and arranger. She has traveled abroad to tour in Russia, the Czech Republic, Paris, France and Montreal, Quebec as well as many of the United States. She has performed with ensembles and orchestras around the world and worked with many professional recording artists including Darin Atwater and Soulful Symphony, Wynton Marsalis, Kurt Masur, Donald Lawrence, Kishna Davis, Yuri Temirkanov, Bobby McFerrin, Kirk Carr and more. She has also opened for many artists including P.J. Morton and sang back ground vocals on albums like Brittney Wright’s “The Beginning” and DDm’s “Winter and The Tinman’s Heart”.

 

In 2011, M.Free released a mixtape called “The Blueprint Free” an ode to Jay-Z’s “The Blueprint III”. The project is comprised of tracks Jay-Z used on his albums and lyrics written by Jay-Z, but instead of rapping, she sings them. The mixture of genres is magical…a reflection of the combination of musical genres Maria loved during her younger years. In addition to the Jay-Z remakes, the single “LOUD: Music Makes Me High” was also released on the mixtape. LOUD mixes essences of dance and Hip Hop with a hook sampling Bone Thugs N Harmony.

 

Partnered with the skill and talent of producers Joshua “Jay-O” Lay and Justin “King Midas” Lay, (Left Brain Productions) she doesn’t doubt, for a minute, that they have what it takes to reach the stars…literally.

 

 

To stay updated with M. Free, go to www.mfreemusic.com or www.soundcloud.com/mfreemusic . Follow her on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram @MFreeYourMind .

 

 

 

CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD M. FREE’S MIXTAPE  THE BLUEPRINT FREE 

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