The Fox Coffee House on west Willow in Long Beach has open mic’s every Thursday and Saturday nights. On selected Saturday’s they will have a featured performer from 7-8 pm, and those performers are drawn from the ranks of open mic regulars. This Saturday one of those regulars, Deja Nichole, made her debut as a featured performer on her 18th birthday. Deja has only been frequenting the venue for a couple of months, but her debut was spectacular! She has a beautiful, powerful voice and can accompany herself on guitar, and her set showed a degree of polish and sophistication well beyond what might be expected based on her age and experience.

Deja with Jesse Schade

Deja sang a mix of covers and original songs. Her own songs deal with serious and mature topics; a good example is “Lion’s Den”, which deals with the tensions between the African-American community and the police, a situation that one cannot adequately understand unless one has spent time in the lion’s den. The real highlights, however, were when Deja performed duets with other regulars like Jesse Schade and Eddie Lopez. In her short time as a Fox regular she has developed very productive collaborations with other members of the community, and as host Sean Gallagher likes to remind us, that is the whole reason behind this venue. Deja’s last song was an original named “Friends”, and in her preface she told us that when she first started coming she really didn’t have any friends, but now she has an entire community behind her and working with her. This is a young lady with a very bright future, and you can catch her this Friday doing a 30 minute set at The Royal Cup Cafe for their open mic.