It was always obvious that Michelle had the voice, even at the early age of 3, but she honed her craft with the help of a vocal teacher named Gina Bettum, who became her mentor and taught her to sing with soul.
It was all uphill for Michelle in early 1999, when a friend of the family was giving a man in the music business a timeshare tour at a nearby resort and urged Michelle to come by.
She would lock herself in her room for days, and would come out with songs she had written herself.