Determined to have fuller control over her burgeoning music career, R&B singer Goapele Mohlabane formed her own independent music label, Skyblaze Recordings, in 2001. Goapele studied at Berklee College of Music before returning to Oakland, where she released her first album, Closer, in 2001. She reworked the album for national distribution as Even Closer in 2002, followed by Change It All in 2005, Break of Dawn in 2011, and Strong as Glass in 2014. Passionate about social justice from an early age (she led a pre-teen peer support group as a child), Goapele has performed at numerous rallies and demonstrations for human rights around the world, and in 2006 the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights made her their first Human Rights Cultural Hero.