In 2004, Even Closer peaked at #24 on the Billboard Charts for Top Independent Albums.

She also toured North America with the band Spearhead. She co-wrote and co-produced the entire album, which is a mixture of neo-soul, trip-hop, lieder, and jazz. In 2004, Columbia/SME Records picked up Skyblaze Recordings for worldwide distribution and rereleased the album with additional tracks. “Closer” was also featured on the soundtrack of the 2003 movie Honey. She released her first nationally distributed album, Even Closer, featuring the single 'Closer,' through Hieroglyphics Imperium Recordings. With the help of her family, she formed her own independent label, Skyblaze Recordings, to oversee her musical career. In 2002 she reworked Closer, adding five new songs. 'Closer' peaked at #63 on Billboard's Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums chart. At the same time, she was building a devoted audience through her popular live performances in the San Francisco Bay Area. In 2001, she self-released her debut album, Closer, which sold 3,000 copies. Goapele returned to Oakland, California after her stint at Berklee College of Music, where she concentrated on writing and recording songs. Goapele and boyfriend Theo Rodrigues have daughter Bahia Osun (born May 2007). She says she has been influenced by many including Stevie Wonder, Etta James, Nina Simone, Billie Holiday, Aretha Franklin, Whitney Houston, Bob Marley, Portishead, Miriam Makeba, Prince, Sade, Caiphus Semenya, Zulu Spears, and Hugh Masekela. Today, her music often highlights the need for political and socio-economic change. Upon high school graduation, she attended Boston's Berklee School of Music for a year and a half. In high school, she sang in the Oakland Youth Choir and became part of a music group called Vocal Motion. She also became involved in various groups and organizations that combated racism and sexism. She attended the Berkeley (California) Arts Magnet School, where she led a pre-teen peer-support group. Goapele and her older brother DJ Namane Mohlabane were raised in a California South African exile community.īoth of her parents inspired Goapele to become very involved in community affairs at a young age. Noa attended Friends World College and was studying in Nairobi, Kenya, where she met and married Douglass. Goapele's New York-born Israeli Jewish mother Noa had been attending protests since the age of 12. Goapele's South African father Douglas Mohlabane was an exiled political activist who struggled against the Apartheid System.

Goapele closer soundtrack