Cole grew up in Oakland, California where she lived a life of crime and was a foster child adopted by Yvonne Cole at the age of 5. She has said that her brother, Sean Cole, and Tupac Shakur were close friends and that he was like an older brother to her. Sean raps under the alias "Nutt-so", and recorded several songs with Shakur before his death. Keyshia's first recordings were with MC Hammer at the age of twelve. In the early 2000s, she appeared on tracks by San Francisco Bay Area artists including Tony! Toni! Toné!'s D'Wayne Wiggins and San Francisco rapper Messy Marv.
Cole was inspired by her grandmother to further pursue her career, so she left the Bay Area only at age 16, with a rented car and a thousand dollars and moved to Los Angeles, California.
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She moved to Tracy when she was 17 and attended Tracy High School, which isn't mentioned in the reality series.
"My brother, uncle and other relatives and friends still live in Tracy," Cole says. "But I did spend most of my life in Oakland."
And it is the Oakland years that offer the most spice, charting her rise from poverty and crime to a Cinderella story of fame and fortune.
When she was just 13, Cole started hanging out with rapper heavyweights Tupac Shakur, Snoop Dogg and MC Hammer.
"My brother (aspiring rapper) Sean (Cole) met Hammer and Hammer introduced him to Tupac, and I was the little sister hanging around. That was at the height of Tupac's career and also the height of Snoop's career, and just to be around them kind of gave me inspiration because I saw what could be," Cole says.
But after spending time with the rappers, she took a hard dive into reality.
"When I got back home, I went back to the gutter," Cole says. "I went back to nothing, like, I couldn't afford a sandwich the next day. It set in on me, and I decided to just make something (happen)."
Cole was only 2 when Yvonne Cole, who later adopted her, took her in. Her adoptive mother, a preacher at Oakland's Laodicea Baptist Church off MacArthur Boulevard, set her on a religious path.
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Yvonne: First, I am very proud of her. I knew she had it in her from a little kid. When I first found out she could sing, she was about 5 years old. We went to a school function and they were having like a talent show. Somehow or another, she slipped away from my hand. Then everybody started to applaud. Come to find out she was on the stage. She had won, I think, the $25 first prize. She didn’t know it was even a talent show going on. She just snuck up there and wanted to sing. But she always loved singing. I brought her up in church. She couldn’t sing in a choir for a while, but later on she got in the choir.
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Maybe it's me or maybe it's not me but - Keyshia Cole's adoptive mother Yvonne oddly resembles Natalie Cole or rather, "Carol" Cole when she was younger. I can't quite place a finger on this situation but Ms. Yvonne and Keyshia gave odd responses during their interviews, especially when it relates to Keyshia Cole's upbringings. If this is true, the reason why Keyshia sealed the "gap" that was between her two front teeth is clearly understandable.
In addition, are you familair with "Marguerite Wendell"? Ms. Wendell was one of many who dated and married "Willie Mays". I am starting to believe that she falls under the "cole" or "Hawkins" family tree. Here's proof:
Nat King Cole's First Wife: Nadine Robinson (Cole)
Bill and Marguerite Kenny (Wendell)********************************************************************************
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