Destani Wolf

“Destani Wolf drops a soulmatic cut on us with “Nothing But The Best”… It’s a formidable offering, tapping into the heartbreak funk of masterpieces like Marvin/Leon Ware‘s I Want You for a refreshing update on the blues tradition…” - Okay Player

L.A.-based singer/songwriter Destani Wolf has released a new single entitled “Nothing But The Best” featuring Miguel Atwood-Ferguson, in anticipation of her forthcoming EP Peek Away. Put a little soul in your morning with this ’70s funk-tinged shot of Lati - Global Grind

Destani Wolf gifts us with some soulful new frequencies, as we have the pleasure of premiering her latest offering “Uprising (Do It!)” off the upcoming Peek Away EP. What we have here is a powerful call to arms, played against some Godfather-esque sonics, complete with that funky church organ treatment and Catfish Collins guitar work, giving young Wolf the space to spread that triumphant vox of her’s all over this thing. “Uprising (Do It)” comes as a quick follow-up to last month’s impressive drop “Nothing But The Best,” which featured the mighty Miguel Atwood-Ferguson adding some tender string arrangements.What do you think?

Wolf’s Peek Away EP is already shaping up to be an impressive one and you won’t have to wait too long to get the full script, as the album lands on digital shelves August 19th and can preordered via iTunes today. You can listen to Miss Wolf’s strapping funk treatment “Uprising (Do It!) and peep the lyric video down below, just be sure to keep your ear to the ground, fam. We’ve got a hunch that you’ll be hearing plenty more from the young soulstress in the years to come. - Okay Player

June 22nd,2006

"...Wolf, who relocated from the Bay Area to Santa Monica in 2004, is also an accomplished improviser who moves easily between afro-caribbean projects with Omar Sosa and John Santos and performs with AguaLibre. She's equally effective belting out R&B as employing extended vocal techniques that can sound like a scratching turntable or a slide trombone." - Los Angeles Times

Sunday, January 14th, 2007


...Some call it a movement. Others say it's a revival. But there's no denying that the blending of hip-hop with live instrumentation and a variety of other genres -- including funk, jazz, salsa, reggaeton and rock -- is one of the freshest, most happening things going in the Bay Area's multicultural music scene.

The idea of a band fusing hip-hop with live instrumentation is far from an anomaly in the Bay Area -- it's part of local tradition. During the mid-'90s heyday of the acid-jazz era, groups like Alphabet Soup, the Mo'fessionals, the Broun Fellinis, Mingus Amungus and Jungle Biskit enthralled hipster crowds at such San Francisco venues as the Up & Down Club and the Elbo Room. For these artists, soul, jazz and hip-hop were all interchangeable elements of the musical mix. But though acid jazz eventually fell out of fashion, the music never stopped -- it's just taken on new forms....

Agualibre could easily be considered Bayonics' East Bay counterpart. Formerly known as O-maya, the group is also a Latin-tinged big band with a fusion-friendly sound that incorporates rap and reggae influences along with traditional arrangements and choruses. "Agualibre is the result of cultures mixing together," says singer Destani Wolf. "The reality is the world is getting smaller. You have people from mixed backgrounds from all over the world."

The band is still putting finishing touches on its debut album, but Aqualibre quickly has become a fan favorite, playing before rapturous crowds at local venues, including October's Latin Jazz Festival at Yerba Buena Gardens. Onstage, says Wolf, "we're all about having a good time. The result usually goes across the board. You see people of all ages dancing."

Another live urban act with a reputation for a killer stage show is Crown City Rockers, whose sound can be described as Sly & the Family Stone meets Run-D.M.C. The Oakland band started as Boston-to-San Francisco transplants called Mission in 2000 (changing their moniker after objections from the British rock band of the same name), and has released several successful albums, including 2004's "Earthtones."

According to emcee Raashan Ahmad, playing live hip-hop isn't as easy as it seems: "Hip-hop is all about the drums. To get the drums to knock is truly a science." Rap's insistence on 4/4 tempos, he says, can be confusing for musicians from a jazz or rock background. "You have to relearn your instrument to play hip-hop."

In an age of ProTools-produced tracks and rigid radio formats, Ahmad admits, it's sometimes a struggle for hip-hop musicians, yet being a live group does offer some advantages. "You can get into those places where people don't know that they like hip-hop," he says -- like the Stern Grove Festival, which hosted the band last year.

Alongside such nationally known indie hip-hop acts as the Coup, Blackalicious and Lyrics Born, Flipsyde has been one of the most successful live urban groups to come out of the Bay Area. The band is signed to Interscope, and in the past two years, it has toured with Snoop Dogg and the Black Eyed Peas, appeared on Conan O'Brien and Jay Leno's late-night TV shows, hit the top 10 in Germany and played San Quentin State Prison (a la Johnny Cash), and its song "Someday" was chosen by NBC as the theme song for the 2006 Winter Olympics.

Flipsyde's mass appeal is easy to understand: It combines the boom-bap of hip-hop with the melodic thrust of rock music. What separates it from other rap-rock groups, including Linkin Park and Limp Bizkit, says the band's DJ, D-Sharp, is that its rapper, Piper, is "a real MC," as well as that its musical influences include rap, blues and Latin music but eschew metallic overkill.

Another distinguishing characteristic is Flipsyde's multiculturalism. "Piper, he's half Brazilian. (Vocalist-guitarist) Steve (Knight), he's a white dude from Alabama. (Guitarist) Dave (Lopez) grew up in Chile. ... Me, I'm born and raised in Oakland, with Mississippi roots," D-Sharp says. "To have so much diversity in the group, that's a representation of the Bay Area."

Yet, while it might be difficult for a musician from the Bay Area to build a successful solo career (with the notable exceptions of Joshua Redman and Charlie Hunter), there's strength in numbers where the live urban scene is concerned. Bayonics boasts 13 people; Agualibre has nine members; there are five Crown City Rockers. And Dynamic recently added a two-piece horn section and a percussionist, for a total of seven.

"The sound is getting bigger," says Kimiko Joy, Dynamic's singer. She says the group started six years ago as a three-piece live hip-hop band. After Joy joined a year ago, its music evolved into what she calls "alternative soul" -- a catchall phrase that incorporates R&B, rap, spoken word, funk and jazz, sometimes within the same song.

"None of us listen to just one type of music. None of us love just one type of music," she explains -- a st - San Francsico Chronicle

San Francisco Chronicle:
“The thrush creating waves…” “She’s a cross between Nina Simone and Janis Joplin.” - Jerry Carroll

“The craft with which Wolf's rugged yet sweet tones weave around Griffin's sharp flute playing on tunes such as the laid-back "Bonsai" epitomizes why we should be proud of Northern California's progressive Latin music scene.” - R. Nachmann

The San Francisco Bay Guardian

“OH girl! Destani Wolf is an incredible vocalist, a singer with a supple, throaty alto who's equally at home harmonizing, (with acclaimed a cappella group SoVoSo, an offshoot of Bobby Mcferrin's Voicestra) or soaring solo.” – Sylvia Chan


Latin Beat Magazine

“Destani Wolf, who also sings with the vocal group SoVoSo, was upfront and center. Displaying a powerful and soulful voice, she put her heart into her delivery with a sanctified bell resonance and clarity….” – Jesse “Chuy” Varela

La Opinion : LA Newspaper
“La vocalista de O-Maya es en sí misma una combinación de culturas: es latina (mexicana) y anglosajona (irlandesa alemana). El resultado es una voz muy potente pero al mismo tiempo suave, rítmica y que hacer mover a la audiencia.” –Nelly Apaza Retamoso

All About Jazz
August 28, 2005
“…the showstopper is hidden in the middle of the set. The classic ballad “You Don’t Know What Love Is” is given a smoky, soulful reading by singer Destani Wolf. Vega lets loose sans mute and Wolf turns up the sass for a rousing conclusion.”

Contra Costa Times
August 20th, 2004
“Wolf is also an accomplished improviser who performs widely with the a cappella ensemble SoVoSo and the Afro-Latin hip-hip band O-Maya. Moving easily between Latin jazz projects with luminaries such as Omar Sosa and John Santos and in reggae grooves, she can belt out R&B and employ vocal techniques that sound like a scratching turntable or a brass fanfare.” By Andrew Gilbert

Roots World
“It doesn't hurt that this ten-member ensemble, equipped with a wicked sense of humour, features only top-notch instrumentalists and singers, the latter including Destani Wolf, O-Maya's secret weapon of mass instruction…” - Michael Stone

- SF Chronicle, Latin Beat Magazine

December 8th, 2006

"It was the sublimely talented young Destani Wolf whose powerful, milk-and-honey voice raised hairs on the back of our necks in a self-assured diva turn with Vega in "Tu no sabes lo que se amor."If it was the closing hours of the Machete Ensemble, never fear, they seemed to say, there is still a whole new generation of musicians like Wolf " - KQED

San Francisco, Ca. Monday, July 3rd, 2006

Again And Again...

Destani Wolf may not be a household name, but let's change that, shall we? Miss Wolf has been very busy in the last few years doing session work with everyone from the Crown City Rockers and John Santos to Ray Sandoval, and also becoming a member of O-Maya and most recently AguaLibre. If you do a search for her, it seems that no matter whom she comes in contact with, she is singled out for her great voice. The proof is in the pepper as they say, and now she has an album under her own name to cause even more damage.

Again And Again... (BraveWolf Productions) has her showing people she has more than what it takes to be a lead vocalist. As soon as her voice is heard in "Revelation", I realized that this very distant from those singers who are manufactured. You know that twitch you get in your eye when you can't believe you're hearing what you're hearing? I got that because at first I'm hearing distant echoes of Roberta Flack, mixed in with a little Lauryn Hill. I'm not sure of her upbringing, but there's a few hints of gospel and blues in Wolf's voice, perhaps the after effect of the experiences of life.

She can be soulful, but she also brings in a little bit of irie feeling in "Cecilita", a nice reggae song done in Spanish. A nice funk groove also develops in "Feel It", but then she steers herself for a soothing soulful drive with "De Donde Eres". I'm sure if she wanted to do a folk song or belt out a rock track, she could easily do that too.

Again And Again... may work as a demo CD, but the production and sound quality on this is ready to be picked up by a label for release, it is perfect as is. Destani Wolf sounds like a singer that could inspire other young people to get into music, she has that kind of power. Her voice is one of those that comes around and surfaces to the top every few years, and her music (she writes her own work) is the kind of material that people will want to take to heart.
- Music for America

July 28, 2004

Let's hear it for the band. No, really: How about a nice round of applause for actual musicians who still play actual music, together, live? For a while there, folks worried that the band would go the way of the dinosaur or the Pet Rock, doomed to oblivion by the advent of technology that made it possible for one guy pressing buttons to replace an entire orchestra, and the popularity of DJs, who, as tastemakers at the time breathlessly insisted, were supposed to morph into the rock stars of our generation.

Yet even at the height of electronica's sway in the late '90s and early '00s, live bands with electronic and hip-hop elements remained on the periphery of the national scene, with occasional mainstream breakthroughs like the Roots. And in some quarters -- namely Los Angeles, Philadelphia, New York, and, yes, the Bay Area -- they've remained as much a part of the musical and cultural landscape as any producer, MC, or singer you'd care to name.
So now, let's make it official: The band is officially back. Not only that, but now bands are getting literally bigger, with some collectives reaching well into double-digits. The simple reason for this, explains Destani Wolf, singer for local ten-piece outfit O-Maya, is that "The world is getting smaller," not so much geographically as musically. O-Maya's influences, for one, are literally all over the map. "We have a mixture of people from Puerto Rico, Nicaragua ... we've grown up listening to soul music, conscious hip-hop, ranchero music from Mexico," she explains. "Personally for us, because of the kind of music we're doing, it was important to include congas and timbales, and have a piano player that also plays accordion."

Once known mostly for rock, the bay's own live music scene has taken on a distinctly ethnic tint in recent years. Over the last two decades, this phenomenon has evolved in three stages: the '80s "world beat" era, when bands such as the Freaky Executives, Zulu Spear, and the Looters ruled the roost; the '90s "acid jazz" era, defined by Afro-futurist amalgamators such as Alphabet Soup, Broun Fellinis, and Mingus Amungus; and the current era (let's call it "urban world") led by multiculti fusionistas such as Bat Makumba, Aphrodesia, and O-Maya, whose self-titled 2003 debut album updated traditional Latin, African, Cuban, Chicano, and Boriqua rhythms with masterful modern touches.

Wolf doesn't believe the return of the band is necessarily a backlash against electronic music, noting that many current local acts have incorporated turntablists, rappers, and MPC beats along with live instrumentation. Take, for example, 75 Degrees (which has earned comparisons to Sly and the Family Stone) and the Crown City Rockers, whose upcoming CD will feature a guest spot from Wolf herself.

"We're constantly evolving," Wolf says of the Bay Area. But though our unique environment has played a part in this evolution, the Bay Area is not alone in embracing musical diversity, either. Out on tour, "I definitely see other bands out there," she notes. "From Texas, Miami, Los Angeles -- places where you have this array of backgrounds and cultures."

Want more proof? Try two of 2004's best albums thus far: Ozomatli's Street Signs and Antibalas' Who Is This America. Both are slamming, polyrhythmic affairs that eschew the narrow-minded superficiality of the majority of pop music these days. And while both rely on various cultural touchstones, each remains rooted to a stylistic base: In Ozomatli's case, it's Latin music; for Antibalas, it's Afrobeat.

Antibalas lead singer Abraham Amayo explains that the fifteen-piece, Brooklyn-based collective isn't interested in taking a "fast-food" approach to music: "Music is for listening and thinking," he says, quoting Afrobeat founder Fela Kuti. Although Antibalas' music is groovy as can be, partying and dancing are secondary concerns -- "Afrobeat needs to be very long," he explains. "When you send impulses, it takes a minute to really circulate." And in a genre like Afrobeat, where the message is an integral part of the medium, sometimes it takes fifteen- or twenty-minute songs to relay that message. Rather than a quick bite, Amayo says, "it's like a full-course meal."

If O-Maya is a tasty entrée and Antibalas offers up a complete dinner, then Dakah is an all-you-can-eat smorgasbord. The newest cultural export from the City of Angels, this sixty-member outfit lives up to its billing as a "hip-hop orchestra" with full string and horn sections in addition to several MCs and two DJs. The result follows in the footsteps of El Lay groups such as Ozo and Breakestra -- who helped establish the funky precedent for the postmodern big band -- but ups the ante by blending hip-hop and jazz with classical. Dakah's first album, recorded live last July in Los Angeles, is nothing if not ambitious: "Reepus II in A Minor," which occupies the album's entire second disc, contains two movements and no less than fifteen - East Bay Express

October 31,2001

"Destani Wolf is an incredible vocalist, a singer with a supple, throaty alto who's equally at home harmonizing(with acclaimed a cappella group SoVoSo', an offshoot of Bobby Mcferrin's Voicestra) or soaring solo." - San Francisco Bay Guardian

October 2013
"...the sweet and Powerful voice of Destani Wolf” - Downbeat Magazine