Kevin Olusola

The reason immigrants come to America is to provide their kids with opportunities, but when they say 'opportunity,' they mean a prestigious job and career. When I had the epiphany that I could do music and sustain myself, they were like, 'OK, son, we need to talk to you.'

My parents always wanted me to do music because they thought it was such a great extracurricular activity but we never thought it was going to be something that would be my career.

Kids bring their mothers and grandmothers to our concerts. You don't see that with a lot of artists today.

I loved the idea of playing cello whilst beatboxing, and I ran with it. I didn't realize that it would put me in front of people like Quincy Jones or Chinese Vice Premier Wang Yang, or even lead me to my current job, being the beatboxer of Pentatonix.

I studied a month in Costa Rica and loved it. I'm not scared to go abroad. I feel like I can figure things out and I know what to do.

From my situation as an African American person in the U.S., people may look at me and think a certain thing without getting to know me. I'm of Nigerian and Caribbean heritage. I went to Yale. What you see is not what you think you're getting.

We want to be considered a band, like Maroon 5 or Coldplay.

I did a capella for a year at boarding school and then I stopped because at Yale, I think they really focus more on singing than having a beat behind them. So I just did my cello thing.

I think it'd be weird for us to do hard rock.

Uh, I think so many things have happened in the mainstream that definitely brought awareness and attention to a cappella. The 'Pitch Perfect' movies, 'The Sing-Off' - I mean, the college a cappella scene definitely has become really hot, which is definitely wonderful.

I've always been technically a Christian, my Dad and my Mom, they're both Christians.

I think being part of Pentatonix has helped my arrangement style a lot, and that's helped me expand myself.