Texas kindergarten teacher quits job, moves to Raleigh to become full-time singer

RALEIGH, N.C. (WTVD) -- Meet BeMyFiasco. She is a Texas-born R&B and soul artist, and she's joining the ranks of the thousands of people taking part in The Great Resignation.

"I've been teaching for about six years. I taught kindergarten through third grade," she said in a sit-down interview with ABC11. "Kindergarten was my love."

In addition to teaching in Dallas, the singer/songwriter was also in school studying to become a therapist.

However, there was one thing that BeMyFiasco found to be truly enriching and fulfilling: singing.

The first thing many notice about BeMyFiasco is her unique name.

"I am a huge Lupe Fiasco fan," she admitted. After Lupe Fiasco released his 2011 'Lasers' album, she was in Atlanta with her mother writing down different variations and combinations and landed on BeMyFiasco.

"This sounds slightly stupid," she admitted, "but it works. And it just kind of stuck. So one day, I was like, I'm changing everything."

Her entire branding changed and she would be known moving forward as BeMyFiasco.

In Summer 2021, Grammy Award-nominated rapper/producer Phonte, 1/3 of Durham's Little Brother group, reached out to BeMyFiasco to produce her album. The two worked on her 'Where I Left You' album for three weeks in Phonte's recording studio in Raleigh.

"I felt very much at home while I was here," she said. "I loved it! It was beautiful, it was gorgeous. Phonte and his family welcomed me with open arms and I just enjoyed the process of having nothing to do but make an album for two to three weeks."

After returning to Dallas, BeMyFiasco was back in the classroom teaching kindergarten and studying to be a therapist.

It wasn't long before Phonte reached back out to BeMyFiasco and challenged her to follow her dreams.

She recalled, "He was like 'so do you want to do all these things or do you want to sing'. And I'm like 'I want to sing."

The next day, she approached her principal and decided to quit teaching. She followed that conversation by talking with her college academic advisor and put school on hold.

She packed up all of her belongings and drove nearly 1,200 miles to Raleigh to live and make music full-time.

"I'm really trying to soak it all in," she said. "I think a lot of times as creatives we're always looking for the next. Now for the very first time, I'm just sitting."

Words she uses to describe how she's feeling are the likes of nervous, excited, scared, and depending on the day -- confused. "We really did this," she said. "I'm kind of in and out."

Her 'Where I Left You' album features 11 songs with hits like "Thinkin Bout It" featuring Darrien Brockington and "U And I."

If dropping everything to move to Raleigh isn't enough, at one point, the singer moved to Los Angeles for two weeks. It was an unforgettable experience that did not end in her favor. She details that experience in her "2 Car Garage" track in which she met a woman off Facebook Marketplace and decided to live with her.

"I'm still kind of processing the fact that I changed my entire life in such a short amount of time," BeMyFiasco admitted. "But I'm also thinking long term, like how can I turn this into something else or just different. I want to be wherever music is. So not just album or singing as an artist, but placement work...so I'm always thinking like, how can I shift."