Francesco Yates

At age 11, Toronto’s Francesco Yates learned that music could be a viable career. After watching School of Rock, he enrolled in “rock camp” and learned piano and guitar. In high school, he joined the band. Work with his vocal coach led to his manager, Chris Smith (Nelly Furtado, JoJo), and by age 16 he was signed with Atlantic Records. Wielding a formidable falsetto and a love for funk, he hooked up with Pharrell Williams — playing guitar on Williams’ song “Gust of Wind” with Daft Punk — who went on to produce Yates’ first album along with Robin Hannibal (Kendrick Lamar, Jessie Ware, Cee Lo). An initial set of singles (“Call” and “When I Found You”) was released in 2014, with a self-titled EP following in 2015. Singles “Nobody Like You” and “Honey I’m Home” led to a Heatseeker award at the Canadian Radio Music Awards. ~ Neil Z. Yeung