Kendra Morris recalls singers who straddled soul and rock during the early '70s, such as Ruth Copeland and Chaka Khan. Her taste was developed through her parents' record collection, a library heavy on late-60s and early-70s soul and funk. During her childhood Morris's best friend was her karaoke machine, which she used for the sake of recording and learning to harmonize with herself. She eventually taught herself guitar and involved herself with a crappy band which moved to New York in 2004 and broke up soon after. Kendra stuck around and wound up recording songs by herself in the closet of her bushwick loft with an old Tascam 8 track she found at a shop in the east village and began releasing the demos on myspace and through iTunes. It was through these demos and playing shows around the Lower East Side of Manhattan with her Fender Mustang and a Sharp GF777 Boombox that she rigged her guitar to play through that she met her still constant producer and collaborator Jeremy Page. After touring with legendary Motown Funk Brother Dennis Coffey and releasing a series of singles including "Concrete Waves," with b-side remixed by DJ Premier, Morris released the album Banshee (2012) on Wax Poetics Records. In 2013, Morris returned with the covers album Mockingbird.