Grammy-winning acapella group Pentatonix member and a solo artist, Kevin Olusola pioneered a unique art of “celloboxing.” A blend of classical cello playing and beatboxing, “cellboxing” doesn’t quite fit anywhere — a central aspect in Olusola’s first solo album, “Dawn of a Misfit.”
Just before Olusola took the Center for the Arts mainstage to speak as the third speaker in the university’s 2025-26 Distinguished Speakers series, he sat down with The Spectrum to talk about navigating new life experiences with family, discipline and inspiration throughout.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
The Spectrum: Your father was a psychiatrist and your mother was a nurse, so that meant healthcare was always prevalent in your life. In what ways did that shape who you are today and influence the way you navigate, you know, your work life, your personal life, or just life in general?
Kevin Olusola: I'd say healthcare really shaped me a lot in terms of me wanting to enter that field more than anything. My father taught me my signature, and at the end of it, he always wanted me to write MD, because for him, it stood for medical doctor. But for me, it stood for my father, my dad, because it meant so much to me that he would teach me and wanted me to be integrated in his life.
I also loved going to his psychiatry practice and seeing how Mom and him work together. My dad has always been very supportive of making sure that I do what's necessary for me to perform my best. He would teach me breathing exercises before I would go on stage and before big exams. He also taught me how nutrition actually affects your mental health. He did a lot of research on that, because his father passed away from diabetes, and there were certain things mentally that was going on with him when that was happening. So my father made a decree to himself that he would never die from diabetes. So I just studied what my dad did, and I've tried to keep that as paramount to my life, so I can be my best, whenever I'm performing.
TS: So in college, you chose to study East Asian Studies, and you lived in Beijing through a Yale joint program. Can you tell us about experiencing life in another country, how that impacted your worldview and what perspectives you gained from that period?
KO: The first thing that I appreciated about my time in Beijing was that you start to realize once you get outside of the cultural context you truly realize everybody is the same. I would talk to taxi cab drivers; I would talk to people playing on the street, and they're all asking the same questions that we ask. Will my child get into a good college? Will I be able to fend for myself and make money for myself? Will I be able to provide for my family? They're joking about things that we joke about, obviously in a different cultural context, but the essence is still the same.
So once I understood that, my perspective on how I communicate and how I make music shifted. The basic understanding and the feeling of music everybody gets. So I try to make sure what I talk about has a universal message. You can be from Zimbabwe, United States or Beijing, the message still ties into you.
I think the other thing was really enjoying cultural differences, because that makes you much more human: somebody who's had experiences that makes you resilient and tough and understand the world and how it's an amazing place to be. It's the first time where I was outside of my comfort zoneI saw things that I'd never experienced before, but it made me say, “You know what? I have an opportunity here to really connect in a way that I had never done before.”
I believe in soft-power diplomacy. I think that when you get to speak to people, especially young people, about who you are as an American, and then play your music and connect with them on that person to person level, my hope is as they grow up and continue to have those types of positive experiences, they'll be able to look favorably on different countries that they had those experiences with.
TS : Some students are a little hesitant at first, you know, because we're home bodies. We love being at home with family, and that's such a big commitment to make, to go to another country and experience this new side of the world. In your eyes, do you think it's important for students to go out there and experience that human experience that you're talking about?
KO: Yes, 100%. It's one of the most life changing experiences that you can have, in addition to the fact that you can do it within a university context that is safe. I think that was why being in Beijing is so amazing to me: I was still on a college campus. I had Yale friends that actually came with me to this program, so we got to experience Beijing together. It's those things that allows you to say, “Okay, I'm safe. Now, let me dip my toe into the water, and see what more I can experience.”
TS: How has fatherhood influenced your work ethic and musical process?
KO: The first thing I will say is that I thought that I was going to actually lose a part of myself when I became a father. Like a lot of people say, “Once you become a dad, you know your life is all about them.” And so when I heard that, it felt very limited, very restricting. I was nervous about that, but what I actually found out was that it's the most freeing opening experience.
Now I am seeing life: things that I've experienced throughout my whole life, but through a child's eyes. The first time I'm watching my son take ice cream and eat it with his teeth and just go “Ahh!” \I remember the first time he looked at a leaf and just stared at me. And I'm like, “Bro, it's a leaf.” But I'm not a child. I've seen a leaf a million times. He is looking at this and analyzing and seeing, “Why does it do this? What does it do? Why is it here? What's its purpose in life?”
And so I now appreciate those first-time experiences over again. I also appreciate how you’re taking care of a human that cannot do a single thing for you. It poops, it pees, it smells and you don't sleep, right? But I love this little human, and that's what unconditional love feels like. I finally realized that must be the kind of love that we are all searching for” an unconditional love where we are loved not because of what we can do, but what we can bring to the world, but just the fact that we are inherently human beings and therefore deserving of love.
TS: So, what advice would you give to aspiring singers who hope to pursue music professionally? What is one piece of advice you would give them?
KO: This idea called, “x plus one,” where a lot of times when it comes to getting started in the music industry, it is so overwhelming. There's so many things to do, and you're like, “Okay, where do I start? So I say you start with “x plus one.” Allowing yourself the permission just to start somewhere and a place that feels comfortable to you. A lot of times, people try to do something that they see online, and go, “Okay, that's the thing that I'm supposed to do.” What if it's not you? What if you needed to start here because this feels like a great onboarding place for you?
And then, “plus one” is just don't give up. Just keep trying. Try different iterations, try different variables, just try different things. Over time, you're going to start to find your place. That's the first thing. The second thing is: how many jobs and different types of jobs there are in the music industry? A lot of us look at the award shows, and think the main job is to either sing or be a recording artist. You can be a music publisher. You can find songs and place them in film and TV. You can be a music supervisor where you are working for a TV set and they're going, “Hey, I need something that sounds like this.” Okay, let me look at my music catalog, or talk to friends and say, “Hey, do you have songs that sound like this with this scene?” You can be an engineer or a producer. Your skill sets can find a home in the music industry if you're open to not just the big, flashy things. And these people make an amazing living, love doing what they're doing because it's suited for them. Be open to the type of opportunities you can do in music.
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