Musiq is the eldest of nine children. At an early age, Musiq decided he would discontinue his high school education, and left home at 17. It was during that time Musiq started to build a reputation for being musically gifted, beat boxing for MC’s, free styling on the open mic circuit, scatting at a jazz club, or just performing a cappella in the streets of Philadelphia, which is where he got the name «Musiq» and later added «Soulchild», which is intended to respect and represent the legacy and traditions of past soul artists. He cites as his inspiration such icons as Stevie Wonder, James Brown, Patti LaBelle, Billie Holiday, Sly & the Family Stone and Ray Charles.[1][2]
Musiq has also earned award nominations from Moard, BET, ASCAP, BMI, and Soul Train.[1].
Musiq Soulchild has had 2 platinum albums, 2 gold albums and 7 hit singles. He has received awards from BillbMTV, American Music Awards, NAACP, and 9 Grammy nominations, including 3 for his 2007 album Luvanmusiq. Besides being a successful recording artist, Musiq is notable for his creative and unique way of titling his albums and songs by ignoring the rules of capitalization, punctuation and spelling
