Our next guest is a two-time GRAMMY award winning
singer and songwriter, and now she's taking pen to paper
with her very first children's book, "The Curly Girl Blues".
Everyone, Please welcome Tori Kelly!
(audience cheering) Hi!
Speaking of GRAMMYs,
you're nominated for two GRAMMYs?
Yes. It's a huge, huge honor.
I mean, I remember being nominated
for the first time for "Best New Artist",
like when I was new artist. Yeah.
And just starting out, and it was this whole
like whirlwind of emotions, and that just trips me out.
It was my childhood dream.
So the fact that I have those is just surreal to me.
But, where did your GRAMMYs end up?
So, what people don't know
is you go on stage and you accept the award and everything,
and people think that's your actual GRAMMY,
like, you go home with that, and that's not true at all.
It's just a prop.
So everyone's just holding the same GRAMMY.
And they send you- And they like
Cinderella it right out of your hands.
Yeah, so you walk off stage,
and you're like, "Oh my gosh",
and they're like, "Thank you so much",
and they just take it away. (audience laughing)
Like basically- Right, like what
are you gonna do at that moment?
Yeah, they send you the GRAMMYs
in the mail, like way later.
So this was like months and months and months later,
and I finally get a notification.
So they were like, "Hey, you weren't home.
We tried to deliver this package and you weren't here,
so we sent them to the local drug store."
You know, where you can pick up just packages,
and we filmed the whole thing,
'cause we thought it was so funny, and being like,
"Hey, I think there's two packages here, like this big."
They're gold. Yeah, and golden.
Okay. So you are Meena in "Sing".
(audience cheering)
Meena is such a meaningful
and important character in both movies,
and one of Meena's storylines in "Sing 2",
is that she is with Eric Andre, Darius,
who's like totally full of himself and hilarious,
but she's not attracted to him,
and they have to pretend like they're in love.
So what happens?
Pharrell is another one of our amazing co-stars,
and he plays an elephant named Alfonzo,
and that is who Meena actually has a crush on,
and it's so cute, and so, you know
by the end, you're seeing Meena kind of picturing
that it's him instead of Darius,
and that kinda helps her get through the performance,
'cause they have a duet together,
and she's like "How am I supposed to pretend
that I like this guy?"
So it's really sweet. I love her storyline in this movie.
I really also love the fact that you did not,
with the GRAMMYs and the starring roles
in the big franchise movies,
that is not exactly where your story started,
and for me, I always like to laugh,
and I love the lighter side of life,
but I like the depth too.
What was the struggle? What was the journey?
It wasn't always easy for you.
It wasn't, no.
Basically, I went into record labels
when I was like 12 years old.
I did a ton of different competition TV shows,
and got a lot of rejection along the way.
Nothing was panning out,
and finally I was like,
"You know what? I've gotten all of these no's,
I'm gonna just kind of take my career into my own hands",
and that's when I started just posting videos online,
on YouTube, and just doing covers with friends,
and picking up the guitar,
and I was just having so much fun with it.
I didn't care anymore, like who was watching,
and slowly but surely, people started noticing,
and I started getting to do shows.
(audience cheering)
It's been amazing.
I mean, I think without all of that rejection
at such a young age, maybe I wouldn't have
had that same drive and that same fire
to be able to do what I'm doing now, even.
And your Curly Girl Blues inspired
from your own childhood. Yes.
Tell me about that.
Yeah, so I have curly hair,
and I did not like it growing up.
At school and stuff,
I didn't really see my hair,
and I was very insecure about it,
and I wanted to write a book
that could hopefully inspire other kids.
If I went through this, and I didn't like my hair,
and was struggling with it,
there's gotta be other kids who also-
(audience applauding)
Could feel the same way. Well, once again,
you took your discomfort, Mm-hmm.
and turned it into your empowerment,
and those messages resonate with people.
They resonate with me so much. Mm-hmm.
As a last question, may I ask you,
is it true that you were pen pals with your husband?
We were, yeah, it was very,
it just wasn't flirty at all in the beginning.
We were just writing to each other
on different sides of the world,
and then for like five months we were doing that,
and we finally met, and it was like,
"Wow, we like each other!"
(audience applauding)
Long story short.
Well, I think that goes to show us all
keep writing everybody.
(audience cheering) It's such an amazing
way to communicate, as is writing a children's book.
Go to thecurlygirlblues.com to get
your amazing copy of this amazing book.
(bright music)