Sheila E was born Sheila Escovedo, the daughter of Latin percussionist Peter Escovedo. She’s a world-class drummer/percussionist and Grammy Award-nominated singer/songwriter. She’s a musician, actress, mentor, and philanthropist. She’s collaborated with some of the most accomplished men and women in the music industry. She found God during the darkest moments of her life, and began pursuing greater desires.
As a high school student, Sheila was playing in her father’s band (Azteca), appearing on two albums. Later, while making her name in the music industry, Sheila met Prince in 1978 before later going on tour and entering into a personal relationship with him. Fame and an engagement between the two followed. Her on-stage performances evolved into productions that often contradicted her personal beliefs and her fame gave way to abuses in perceived power. “I became mean, demanding, and angry. I stopped asking and started telling … I was becoming a nightmare,” she says in her recently released memoir, “The Beat of My Own Drum.”
Come 1990, she’d become exhausted and experienced health problems. She’d grown conflicted by the nature of the artistic direction Prince was heading. In 1991, she shifted from her relationship with Prince and the spotlight in general. Following a tour with her band in Japan, she suffered a punctured lung as the result of acupuncture gone terribly wrong. That, combined with the rigor of years of drumming non-stop, and in 5-inch heels no less, left her body brutalized and in bad shape.
Shelia E. realized she was not invincible.
She realized she was not in control. She had been unable to eat and wilted to a mere 85 pounds. She turned to the Bible and recommitted herself to God, focusing on spiritual priorities and later dealing with the pain of sexual abuse during childhood.
Raised a Catholic, Sheila gave her heart and life to the Lord at age 18 while playing in George Duke’s band. Stressed and in tears, she was led by one of the singers in the band who was driving her to a meeting.
In 2001, she co-founded the Elevate Hope Foundation, whose mission is “dedicated to providing abused and abandoned children an alternative method of therapy through music and the arts, and funding special services and programs that assist the needs of these children using these fundamental methods.”
Her autobiography that came out this year was going to be titled “From Pain to Purpose,” which reveals part of her testimony. “We have a team of 30 or 40 or 50 people, and we travel around the world as Christians and artists and musicians. And part of my testimony is that I share. Not just at regular concerts, but in churches or communities.”
She uses her story to inspire strength, endurance, hope, kindness and love to those who feel it’s otherwise unobtainable. As she says, “[s]haring my story and offering my help in this process are true expressions of God’s love in my life.”
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