Meet Kira Gallie | Musician/Rapper

We had the good fortune of connecting with Kira Gallie and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Kira, what do you want your legacy to be?
Growing up, I was the weird kid. I moved a lot so I was the one who fit in with no one and everyone. Always involved in different groups. Most of which were the performing arts in one way or another. Playing upwards of 8 different instruments, dance, choir, theatre, cheerleading.. you name it, I was there. Always learning something new, sharing the wisdom and growing; inspiring and showering those around me with positivity and limitless encouragement and support. Always a shoulder to lean on, an ear to listen, and hand to help. I didn’t live a very happy, supportive, or financially able homelife; a story for another time; so music was an escape. I would never want anyone else to have to ever see, feel, or have to know firsthand what I have endured. So I will forever love, and support, and be here for anyone and everyone that needs it. With some boundaries for self love and care, of course. For those who are inevitably struggling, I hope that I can lead by example and be sort of a survival guide for those who need it. To help them come out on the otherside of their struggle not having had the world tear them down. So they know theyre not alone, and someone else has too been there, and seen the bad times. Simply by sharing my journey through music and communication; just being my inclusive, optimistic self, I hope that I can be remembered as the one who smiles at everyone, the healer, the helper, and always the student. The one who didn’t give up on her passions because it’s ‘not realistic’. The one who remained soft and kind despite the hard and cruel world we live in today while inspiring everyone I encounter on the way to live their passions and be true to who they are, too. We’re all human, and all in this together, and I act it and live it in every step and breath I take.

Let’s talk shop? Tell us more about your career, what can you share with our community?
I remember my mom telling me a story from when I was only 1 yr old. My uncle was napping on the couch, and me, in my playpen. Secure. Playing. My mom needed to wash my bottles and went to do so. Not long later, she comes back to find me unclothed, in my diaper, out of my playpen, dancing on the coffee table pretending to be Shania Twain as “Man, I feel like a woman” played. I guess that’s where my love for music and performing began. Although, my mom was a single mother, for my father went to prison when i was only 9 months old. She then met my brother and sisters father, and unfortunately, he wasnt a very good man and i grew up whitness and subject to a lot of abuse. Finally getting out, my mom took her 3 kids and we survived. I had to grow up too young and I helped her care for and raise my brother and sister while also looking after her, as mental illness and substance dependancy runs in the bloodline. Until one day my mom met my dad, eventually remarried and had my baby brother. There was a lot of past trauma for me, having been through with my mother what we survived, and the transition to having a father figure was difficult and took a long time for me to accept. But i came around, saw the good in him, helped him grow as a human and now completely respect what he did for my mother and family.

But even before he came along, as soon as I could, while in school, I was in music class, and choir trying to escape the realoty of my home life. Starting on clarinet until the teacher brought out a piece to play that needed an oboe player, which our band didn’t have, so I thought why not, I’ll learn it. And there began my journey of learning all the instruments I could get my hands on. While continuing band and choir, I dabbled in dance and cheerleading, making my way up to captain of the cheer squad, and not the preppy cheerleader, the athletic one that the preppy girls snarled at for getting captain over them. This IS middle and high school afterall. Until one day, after practice, I got home to my mom and dad waiting with the family to let everyone know we were moving… again… but this time, from Winnipeg, MB, Canada where we all finally had settled, and stopped moving for years… we were now moving countries, and going to California. I was 15 years old when we uprooted our lives and made the 3+ day drive down to Palmdale, California.

You can imagine the first thing I did was join band, marching band, theatre, and drama club. Not truly understanding what a big deal marching band was in California compared to the lack thereof where I was raised. Music and band was a whole new beast! But, once again, I’m the weird new kid from America’s hat with the weird accent to top it off. Was also the first time I truly understood why everyone says Canadians are too nice. Cause I was not ready for American high school bullying. Just like the band, it was a whole new beast. I truly had to embrace the peace, love and happiness ‘hippie’ from Canada that I was in the middle of sophomore year. I was very ahead academically when transferring, which allowed me to allocate academic time to music time. By senior year, I learned to play the flute, as well as still being able to play clarinet and oboe, as well as took over the drumline both concert and marching. Playing timpinis, all mallet instruments from glockenspiel, xylophone, marimba and vibraphone. Marching band cymbals and bass drum. And by senior year I was a drumline captain, while also being a percussionist in the community College band, and working a part time job at the movie theatre, and taking private dance classes, and driving school, all while studying my lines for the schools Shakespeare festival as i had the closing monologue. Honestly looking back, I have no clue how I did it all. But music and school was still my escape. As a whole the family was doing better, but I was severely misunderstood.. at the time by both my family and my self, despite not accepting my own part. Joys of being young and learning and growing as an individual.

Finally I went to college, and despite my musical passion and talent, music and dance were my minor. I was influenced by my family to not pursue the performing arts because.. and I will quote my grandpa from when I was 15 “You’re not good enough, the music industry is too hard to get in to, even if you did make it, theyll chew you up and spit you out and it’s not realistic.” And I can’t lie, it stung, but after years of reinforcement from those closest to me, by the time college came around, it’s like the negativity sunk in and I believed them. I ended up studying something else I’m passionate about, language. Sign Language to be exact. Putting music on the back burner.

By this time I’m 18/19 years old and the onset of the family mental illness I talked about started onsetting and I only completed 2.5/4 years of my sign language courses before I left college. Keeping in mind, I was still a very busy bee with courses, private dance classes, which I was now volunteering at the studio as an assistant for a younger class, and working. Needless to say, I burned out. Stopped everything. Left school, stopped dancing, got a new job in the food service, and wasn’t playing music anymore. My mental health was suffering and home wasn’t ideal. February 2012 comes around and I become an American citizen. It was a long process, over 8 years, 6 of which were in California. Now I’m a citizen of both Canada, and the US. By may of 2012, I had my new passport, quit my job and moved back to Canada alone with only a small carryon suitcase and a backpack. Had a job lined up on an island canoe camp way up in Northern Ontario for a summer and from there, I’d figure out where I was going next. By this point there’s a lot of suppressed memories, and triggers I didn’t understand.

Still not doing music, I was in southern ontario for a few years, trying to enjoy life, working retail, mental health slowly decreasing and eventually ‘made friends’ with the psychiatric industry. Luckily this is Canada. It’s free. Struggling for many years, I finally found a medication that worked and stabilized my brain. I sat with nature a lot and spent a lot of time a lone and working on healing my traumas and personal health. Finally moving to Sudbury, Ontario in 2016. So green, most beaches and parks per capita in all of Canada, city of the performing arts aside from Toronto! Street art murals everywhere! Colourful and nature full. I took it upon myself to research open mics or karaoke or something musical in the area I could partake in. Karaoke it was. And I made I family doing it. Turns out with all my percussion training, and love for Eminem growing up, I’m quite the rapper! Can I sing, sure. But rap?! If you see me, it doesn’t seem like it fits. I ended up, on top of working retail management, my karaoke family was awesome. I made friends with the DJ who wanted needed another dj to host if he had other gigs, so I started training, learned how to work a sound board and his system, and became a Karaoke DJ a night or two a week, also. It was amazing, and so much fun. The fuel had been resparked and the firey passion for music was spreading once again!

I practiced all hours of the day. Singing, rapping, and saved up enough money to get myself a glockenspiel, a ukulele that I had no idea how to play, and a microphone. Practicing at home and work, karaoke at night. Sudbury had karaoke somewhere close to me everynight except Monday. Eventually I started uploading videos to YouTube. Username: Kalianada. Combining Cali and Canada with my name. Posting Raw, real, unedited, uncut, videos doing all sorts of covers. Pop, country, rock, singer/songwriter, and especially rap! I was working retail, I didn’t think it would go anywhere, it’s my passion, what I do for myself, and I simply wanted to share. If I mess up in the video, I make a face or giggle at myself and keep going and post it anyways. My first video to start taking off was an eminem cover on YouTube. By then, my insta was also dedicated to my music and my online profile. I started challenging myself in rap. Taking some of the fastest rappers out there, Eminem, Busta Rhymes, Joyner, Logic and learning their raps. Getting cleaner and faster more confident.

However, I had to live, and managed to work my way up in retail to senior management. I was working a lot and music and karaoke stopped being everyday and was more weekly as my yourube still wasn’t taking off and I needed to pay the bills. So I worked, a lot, and my mental health started to plummet again, so I requested different testing and evaluations as I did my own research (forever a student) and after years of studying, and healing, I know myself better than anyone. My psychology agreed and was shocked as he didn’t believe it could be possible with my history of activities and working and being in management to have Adhd and be autistic. It’s like you’re doing the biggest puzzle you’ve ever seen and you’re finally getting those last couple pieces in to complete it. Everything made sense. It allowed me to study and learn more, and grow more, and be able to better know and understand my limits.

Then the world shut down. But retail didn’t. Especially not management. That was hard, all while relearning myself and how to accommodate my stims and distractions in both my home life and work life. But toktok is now a thing so I start uploading my covers to tiktok and making videos. Then the best thing ever happened and Denise, my first friend in Cali, my sister, my rock and support through all of this, even from another country, asked me to be her first born daughters God mother. Of course I have to say yes. But with that yes meant I wanted to actually be close to them, and watch her grow and I want her to know me.. so I began the process. Shipped some boxes ahead of time, uprooted once again at the end of 2021, moving down to Arizona to be closer to Denise and my God Daughter. First things first, get a job and place of my own. Didn’t take long, there’s a demand for retail management now as covid changed things. Got settled and first thing I did in my new apartment was record a new rap cover and upload it everywhere. By now it had been quite a while since posting anything, and the small following I had built was curious when my next cover was coming out.

I learned Isis by Joyner Lucas and Logic not knowing where that song would eventually take me.

Working 10 hour days, 5 days a weeks, and not a regular schedule, I really had to budget my time and energy so I could still learn new songs, practice and post or I’d reach my limit and burn out and spiral again. But I still managed to find karaoke near me once a week and went to check the place out. I’ll never forget the first time I finally put my song in and grabbed the mic. The look of disbelief the DJ gave me as the track for ‘Killshot’ by Eminem started playing. Taking the mic back to my seat, I know the words, I don’t need the screens, I was in the corner alone and all I could see was the entire bar start looking around for who the heck is on the mic rapping like this right now?! Needless to say, they were shocked when it was me bringing the mic back up to the DJ. I might be in my early 30’s, but I look younger, and I’m this very petite, big & bright eyed, yellow haired weirdo, the last thing people expect is brutal, choppin’, fast raps from the greats coming out of my mouth.
Needless to say I made friends with the DJ and started working for him too after learning his board and system quickly. Still posting videos, still working 10 hour days in the store, still DJing and keeping music alive. Where I met my now husband. It was fast but I couldn’t be happier. My track record for relationships started out like my mothers, not so hot and some bad guys. But there are good ones out there and now we have a 4 month old and another on the way.

While pregnant with the 4 month old, I stopped working. Retired from retail. I wanted to focus on my health, and my pregnancy and be home to raise my son. But I was still going to karaoke! Not even djing anymore, just going, practicing, getting videos there and at home. All while a 6 month baby is pushing on my diaphragm. I got a video doing Isis again, but live, at karaoke this time, again not needing the lyrics. 6 months pregnant, I post the video to tiktok and tag Joyner and Logic in it, not thinking anything of it. The next morning I wake up and my phone has blown up. My video in less than 12 hours had over 60k views. I still don’t quite understand what’s going on or how to wrap my head around it.

I’m not perfect, I’ve hurt people and burned bridges, and made mistakes, but I learned and grew and never made the same mistake twice. And I absolutely still have amends to make with some.

All I ever wanted was to help make the world a better place, spread love and joy and kindness through music and my story and my message and after years and years of staying at it and posting and practicing, something was finally taking off. It went viral. Almost 1m views now. I have a following like never before. And Logic commented on the video. Now I’m happy, and sharing my life and connecting with people through my story and experiences, helping those who need it, and building on the cute description I’ve always been given and incorporating my theatrical optimism to hard hitting, fast rap. Spreading my kindness and quirkiness, and music and its a very weird feeling to know that everything I’ve worked towards is finally paying off.
I’ll raise my family, and work on my music and keep posting content that goes viral. Keep letting people know my story and inspiring those with similar ones to keep pursuing their passions and taking care of themselves, because despite all odds, it is possible if you keep working and learning and growing. Life, people and the world will try to keep you down, and influence your energy negatively, don’t let it win! And always stay kind. It’s a long road and I’m still healing today, but I never stop working on myself, and learning and I hope I can inspire others to channel their struggles and traumas in a positive and healing way too.

Any places to eat or things to do that you can share with our readers? If they have a friend visiting town, what are some spots they could take them to?
Oh! Well Monday nights at Westgate is karaoke! I sadly have only been once recently, as I have my first 4 month old baby boy, now! But Monday night karaoke at Westgate is my spot!

The Odyssey Aquarium in Scottsdale is fun and there’s lots of other adventures to go on in the same spot that include aliens, dinosaurs, and butterflies. I will always be a kid a heart and makes for a good day!

Take a drive over to Papago Park! It’s beautiful! Sit by the water with the ducks, or go up and do some hiking and enjoy the view! So long as its not too hot, of course. But the spot makes for some AMAZING photos! Denise even did my maternity photos there!

And, being that this is a week-long trip, I’d take a drive up to Flagstaff and get some nature and a cool breeze.

Being that this would probably be a friend from Canada, they’re trying some American food while they’re here and the simple pleasures like panda express, Chipotle, and in n out will be enjoyed and missed when they return home.

Who else deserves some credit and recognition?
Denise Ana Carmichael. My best friend. My sister. My rock. My FAMILY. Through all of the music classes, and theatre productions, through high-school and driving school and college and work, and now 17 years later, motherhood and life. I don’t know where I’d be without her. Another woman who puts others before herself, and builds up and supports A fellow artist. The most talented, passionate, caring and involved photographer you could ever dream of having capture your life. Without Denise, I probably would have succumb to the bullies and negativity from my own family, if she hadn’t led by example, never giving up on her own artistic photography dreams and passions, I would have gave up on my music ones. She was strong for me when I couldn’t be for myself, and now, because I didn’t give up, I’m still doing what I love too, and going viral because she was the best influence anyone could ever have.

She’s incredible, and strong for others even if she’s struggling to be strong for herself. But that’s why we have each other. To be strong for one another. That’s what sisters are for. And I couldn’t even fathom my life without her in it.

Go hire her to capture your life’s special moments (they’re all special, by the way)! You won’t regret it!

Instagram: Instagram.com/kalianada

Youtube: Youtube.com/kalianada

Other: tiktok.com/@kalianada

Image Credits
Denise Ana