Jackson’s live performance circle is her playground for R&B and blues, with a sprinkle of pop. Her most treasured melodies are those she was forbidden to listen to as a child, but there was something about the sounds and the feeling she got when she listened that attracted her.

“I’m an 80s baby, but I just love blues,” said Carter, known on the music scene as Meika Shanté. “It’s just something about it. I don’t know where I got it from. My favorite blues singer is Betty Wright. Tonight is the Night is my opening song to whatever I do. I tear Betty down.”

Carter, who credits her voice inheritance to her father’s side of the family, started singing at church like many southern belles. Surprisingly to family and friends at the time, Carter did not enjoy singing in front of people. Elders forced solo acts and occasional songs at weddings and funerals on her. Eventually, it gave her the courage and a desire to open up more to performing, but she was still a little apprehensive.

“Some years back, K. Michelle was here, and she asked people to come up on stage and sing,” said Carter, whose favorite singers include Fantasia, Jazmine Sullivan, and Prince. “Nobody was really going up there. People around me who knew me started pointing at me, and she asked me to come up. I didn’t want to, but that’s how it started.”

The entertainment partners started their journey on stage together in 2014 and have been packing rooms ever since. They connect with the crowd through music, games, and shenanigans at least twice a month in the Jackson area, mainly at Social 21 Bistro, Johnny T’s, The Mediterranean Grill, and Ish.

“Mississippi people just have that soul when we sing,” said Carter. “I just feel like it’s totally different. I’ve done karaoke in Houston and different places, but the sound here is different. You can’t get that sound from nowhere else.”