Bilal (American Singer) - Early Life

Early Life

Bilal was born Bilal Sayeed Oliver in northwest Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He grew up in a religiously mixed household, his mother being a devout Christian and his father, a Muslim. He regularly attended church with his mother in a small church that consisted of mostly family members. It was there that Bilal grew an interest in music and singing. His interest in jazz music was fostered by his father, who took him to the city’s clubs. Singing eventually became more than an interest. After attending high school at the Philadelphia High School for Creative Performing Arts, Bilal moved to New York City and studied at the New School for Jazz and Contemporary Music. He studied jazz, and his love for music caused him to use a voice as an instrument.

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