Leah LaBelle Vladowski (September 8, 1986 – January 31, 2018) was an American singer. Born in Toronto, Canada, and raised in Seattle, Washington, LaBelle began to pursue music as a career in her teens. During her childhood, she performed in the Total Experience Gospel Choir and the musical Black Nativity. At age 17, she was a finalist on the third season of American Idol. After placing twelfth in the season finals, she attended the Berklee College of Music for a year and collaborated with Andreao Heard on a demo. Following her move to Los Angeles, she recorded covers of R&B and soul music for YouTube. Keri Hilson hired LaBelle as a backing vocalist after hearing her rendition of "Energy", which led to her working as a background singer for other artists on their tours.
LaBelle signed a record deal in 2011 with Epic in partnership with I Am Other and So So Def Recordings. Her sampler album Pharrell Williams and Jermaine Dupri Present Leah LaBelle (2012) was distributed to record companies, and was supported by the singles "Sexify" and "What Do We Got To Lose?". At the 2012 Soul Train Music Awards, LaBelle received the Soul Train Centric Award. She released the stand-alone single "Lolita" in 2013. On January 31, 2018, LaBelle and her boyfriend Rasual Butler died in a car crash in Los Angeles. A posthumous extended play, Love to the Moon, was released on September 7, 2018.
Cite error: There are <ref group=lower-alpha> tags or {{efn}} templates on this page, but the references will not show without a {{reflist|group=lower-alpha}} template or {{notelist}} template (see the help page).