Ravinia 2019, Issue 6, Week 11

“When the other members of Pentatonix saw my ‘Julie-O’ video, they decided, ‘That’s the guy we need!’ ” the tight-knit combo is a fascinating case study in celebrity and internet culture. The reality show that crowned them, NBC’s The Sing-Off , is a distant memory for most TV viewers, having last aired six years ago (an eterni- ty in our relentless media age). Like Idol or The Voice , it was a singing compe- tition, but designed specifically for a cappella ensembles. After being named the victors of the show’s third season in 2013, Pentatonix managed to achieve the ongoing success all contestants hope for; today, they’re a three-time Gram- my-winning and multiplatinum-selling group, touring the world to perform their own material plus the pop-rock covers that made them famous. And to think, the quintet didn’t even come together until the eve of the TV show. Of course, Olusola’s part in the Pentatonix fairy-tale-come-true goes much further back, as he explains during a phone interview conducted while he’s in Calgary, on a short break during the current tour. Born in Cali- fornia, he grew up in both Pennsylvania and Kentucky—but his parents began noticing his natural gift when he was still an infant, just six months old. As the story goes, they played “If You’re Happy and You Know It,” and baby Kevin clapped in time. A few years later, at age 4 or 5, young Kevin started to play “House of the Rising Sun” on an electric keyboard. Nobody had taught him; he was just plunking out the tune by ear. “That’s when my parents said, ‘We have to get him into music lessons,’ ” Olusola notes. With both of his parents having ca- reers in medicine—Mom’s a nurse; Dad, a psychiatrist—Olusola best traces his musical affinity to his maternal grandfa- ther, who owned a guitar shop in Grena- da. Wherever the talent comes from, the seed is strong. Like Kevin himself, both his brother and sister play three instru- ments. In the years to come, “I took cello lessons, piano lessons, and saxophone lessons classically, all throughout childhood,” Olusola says. “I did a lot of summer music programs that focused on music theory. I did a lot of training just for fun.” Nevertheless, this fun led to incredible accomplishment: He played Carnegie Hall twice as a teenager, as soloist on both cello and saxophone; a couple years later, he became the runner-up in the 2009 international Celebrate and Collaborate with Yo-Yo Ma competition. By the time he went to Yale, Olusola had turned his considerable brain power to mastering Chinese, which included 18 months living in Beijing. Although he was a practice-room monitor at the Yale School of Music, an arts career was not where he set his sights. “I was actually kind of averse to the idea,” he explains. “Being an African American, I think a lot of people in the United States stereotype, thinking I should go into entertainment or into sports. I was vehemently opposed to that. Also, for my parents, coming from Nigeria and Grenada, music was not necessarily a career. It’s more something you do on the side, but you go into something with PREVIOUS AND NEXT SPREAD: JIRO SCHNEIDER THIS PAGE: RYAN LONGNECKER 20 RAVINIA MAGAZINE | AUGUST 12 – AUGUST 25, 2019