Julia Channel : An eclectic and captivating woman.

During her professional career as an actress, from which she never hides, Julia Channel had to draw on all of her strength and determination. For the last twenty years, her passions for music, photography, and health and fitness, have been her driving force.

Julia has made an asset out of her mixed-race heritage. Born in Paris of a Malian father and French mother, she has been able to draw upon this racial and ethnic diversity in her work. Her difficult childhood in the suburbs of Paris was softened by the passion of her father, an artist, and American Musicals of the 50’s. No cartoons for little Julia, rather all the films of Fred Astaire and Gene Kelly. Added to this, the music of Stevie Wonder, George Benson, and Michael Jackson completed her artistic infancy. Her musical roots lie there.

At the turn of the millennium, Julia was fully immersed in the international Hip Hop scene; she was the face of the “Homecore” street clothing brand alongside Joey Starr. Julia appeared in music videos alongside artists such as Method Man (Judgement Day), Lord Kossity (Dancehall Soldier), Menelik (Bye Bye), Stomy Bugsy (Ho Le Le), and rock band Silmarils (Cours Vite). Julia presented various TV and Web shows for Canal+ in France before starting her own music program “Hip Hop Channel” on the MCM network in 2001 where she interviewed the likes of Alicia Keys, Busta Rhymes, Eve, Xibit, etc.

Julia also had a brief mainstream French cinema career starring in such movies as Recto Verso, Freres, Les Truffes, and Coup de Vice. Julia quickly understood that she was destined to be always typecast in roles did she did not find fulfilling so stepped away from this career path.

Julia started her modelling career at 18 and has covered a wide range of projects from glamour, lingerie, classic fashion, and was the first black woman in France to feature as a cover model in glamour magazines. Julia has featured on hundreds of covers all over the world. As Julia says, “It is always a struggle for a black woman to appear on the cover of a magazine, even in the Glamour industry and you have to fight constantly for recognition.” Julia’s love of photography continues today, and she now enjoys being on both sides of the camera.

Julia has kept herself very busy on other projects. She is a real adventurer in every sense of the word: she became the heroine of a comic strip of the “Girl Power” genre.

In 2008 Julia was approached by the French editor Blanche Editions to write her autobiography, at first Julia though that, at only 35 years old, she was too young to publish an autobiography but she came to realise she had more than enough to say about her very full life up to that point to make it worthwhile doing. She also felt that it was the perfect way to close that chapter of her earlier life and turn a page and look to what lay ahead. Julia has never hidden from or denied her past, but she feels very strongly that it is exactly that, the past, and she prefers to now concentrate on the present and what lies ahead. Julia is a mother of two children and is passionate about being a great role model for them. For this reason, Julia is very careful to always remain true to herself and her artistic vision in everything that she does.

As music has always been a passion of hers, following multiple rejections from record companies, Julia decided to create her own record label in London to produce her own music. She worked with a select and cohesive team of composers and songwriters from England, America, and France to produce her first album, “Colours”, in 2012. In 2020, Julia will release a new album, “As I Am”, a mix of new material alongside some of her older songs.