At a young age, Daniela Scales, also known as the R&B artist Yelly, knew she wanted to be a singer. She discovered her love for singing in the third grade.
Her father, seeing that she had a passion for singing, enrolled her in vocal lessons, which she took from elementary school through high school.
“I always loved writing poems and things like that,” she said. “So songwriting came natural to me as well, and it was really just my escape from kind of my household trials and tribulations.”
Scales released her first song as a sophomore in high school, and it eventually gained traction locally. By the time she was 16 and a junior, she headlined her first ever concert at a sold-out show at the venue Harlow’s.
Scales continued to gain popularity as an artist, performing wherever she could and was featured on songs with local artist MarMar Oso.
Over the years, she continued headlining shows at Harlow’s, also gracing the stage at Sacramento’s hip-hop and R&B festival Sol Blume in 2023.
“That moment was super dope, because I was the only Sacramento artist on the lineup,” Scales said about performing at Sol Blume. “So it was just really cool to represent for the city.”
Scales eventually moved to Los Angeles for better opportunities in the music industry, where she resides to this day. Her last EP dropped in 2023, and the latest single in 2024, but Scales said the music is “cooking” and that she is ready to return in 2026 with new music.
“It’s been marinating and slowly baking, slowly, but surely, about to come out,” she said. “I’ve been honestly, really just writing a lot.”
Making of an artist
Scales said, looking back on the moment she performed at Harlow’s while being a teenager, she didn’t realize the impact she was making.
“As you’re young, you can’t even fathom or grasp really kind of what’s going on in life or the world, because you haven’t even gotten to really experience anything quite yet,” Scales said. “So I was just going with the motions. But now looking back, I’m like that was pretty cool to me to be doing that at that age.”
Scales mentioned that she loves going on stage and feeling the energy from the crowd while she sings.
“I think what I love most about performing is being able to just be there physically with the crowd,” she said. “And being able to touch people and allow them to actually feel my soul, my spirit as I sing these words and the impact is just different when it’s in person.”
Besides performing at shows and collaborating with other artists, what gained Yelly a lot of traction was remixing songs from different artists, putting her own spin on them, and releasing them on social media platforms.
She notably remixed the song “Wockesha” by Moneyybag Yoo, which has over 1 million views on TikTok and Instagram.
“I took his verse and flipped it and completely made it my own and wrote a new verse and said, ‘what it would be like if I was on this song,’” she said.
At the age of 20, Scales moved to LA, the land of opportunity in the music industry. She said after headlining three shows in Sacramento, it was time to headline shows in other cities.
“There was only so much more I could do in Sacramento,” she said. “Now it’s time to go build connections with other producers, other songwriters, and in rooms that might take me to places that I would have never necessarily been able to get to in Sacramento.”
New music on the horizon
Yelly released her latest single, “Till The Morning,” in 2024 and hasn’t released a song this year, but she has been recording new music.
“I have a full EP right now that I could drop right now,” she said. “As an independent artist, you gotta kind of work the system a little bit. So definitely going to be dropping a lot of singles coming 2026 and just getting the fans back excited, and just building the buzz, and when it’s time, the EP will drop.”
Scales said she put a pause on releasing music because she got into the music industry at such a young age, but has been writing a lot and is excited to release new music and update everyone on why she’s been missing.
Yelly is an R&B singer from Sacramento who has headlined show’s at Harlow’s and performed at Sacramento’s hiphop and R&B festival Sol Blume.Photo courtesy of artist Yelly
Yelly’s manager, Brent Sands, has managed her since she was a teen. Scales is now 24 and has progressed as an artist since he’s known her, he said.
Sands said R&B is a mature art form — the ups and downs and heartbreak that singers have to go through to become better artists. He said that’s the biggest progress you can make as a singer.
“I first started managing her, she was only like 16 at that time, so I knew it’s going to be some years of life before you actually blow up, because you got to get more authentic with age,” he said. So now she’s like in a prime age, where the music she’s making, I know exactly what she’s specifically talking about, and not what she heard Alicia Keys say before.”
Sands said his goal as her manager is to help her reach the status of a famous singer. For Yelly, she’s excited to come back on the scene to release more music, finally.
“I just hope to be able to make a positive impact and just help people heal however I can,” Scales said. “I hope to make Sacramento proud.”
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