Why The Lael Project?
According to the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention, suicide was the 11th leading cause of death in the U.S. in 2022, with over 49,000 individuals dying by suicide that year and an estimated 1.6 million suicide attempts. Despite these sobering statistics, 94% of adults surveyed believe that suicide is preventable.
The Lael Project is the vision of Marla Mase, Lael’s mother, to encourage open discussions about suicide, mental illness, eating disorders, and depression. It is her belief that through the sharing of stories, music and song, healing can begin.
The musical component of The Lael Project will be an ongoing series of releases featuring both original songs and covers recorded by Lael during her brief but impactful music career. The project will be comprised of re-mixes, never-before-released material, live recordings dating back to her pre-teen years and remastered versions of her two existing albums, Burden to Bear (2013) and Life in Color (2015).
“I used to picture happiness as a destination – an emerald city at the end of a long yellow brick road of suffering. But now I see that it’s here all around us, all the time… and we have to incessantly fight for it. For some of us, the fight is harder.”
– Lael Summer
The Lael Project is named in memory of Lael Summer Feldman, who tragically took her own life on July 26, 2017, after a courageous struggle with depression, an eating disorder, and suicidality.
Lael struggled throughout her adolescence, spending most of her teenage years in and out of various treatment centers. She credits her fifth treatment center in Utah, where she spent 17 months, (between the ages of 15 and 17), as lifesaving. Lael completed high school in her hometown of NYC and went on to receive her Bachelor of Music degree from the elite Popular Music Performance Program at USC’s Thornton School of Music. She released two albums, Burden to Bear (2013) and Life in Color (2015) on True Groove Records. She was written up as “the one to watch” from various music sites such as: Kings of A&R, EarMilk, AbsolutePunk, The Big Takeover, SoulTracks, RockNYC and PopDose, to name a few. Her songs are an amalgamation of soulful anthems, many of which challenged the inner negative voices of her eating disorder and depression.
Known for her sassy sense of humor and badass irreverence, Lael’s lyrics, whether a ballad or a dance floor banger, were always an offering of strength, hope and empowerment.
After college, Lael worked at a residential treatment center in Los Angeles as a Residential Advisor and an OCD exposure therapist. Clients loved her, and many spoke of Lael as being a pivotal player in their recovery. One former patient described her this way: “Lael showed me how to have compassion for myself while still holding myself accountable for my behavior. She called me out on my shit because she deeply understood. She had lived it. Sometimes she would sing for us… and when she did…a bit of heaven opened up.”
In addition to her music career, Lael is a co-author of the play, The Pill, a family memoir which had a run at NYC’s legendary La MaMa Theatre in 2018. The play is based on a true story about how mental illness and an eating disorder had impacted an entire family. Lael hoped that this play would help to remove the stigma and hush-hush atmosphere often surrounding these issues and open up a dialogue.
An activist, artist, and lover of humanity who never shied away from sharing her inner-most challenges with the world, Lael and her legacy live on through The Lael Project.
“I wanna be alive with you….It’s the best thing we can do…”
- Marla Mase
Marla Mase, is a native New Yorker and the mother to two beautiful souls, Lael and Yanai. She is also an entrepreneur, writer, performer, recording artist and COO of True Groove Records. She most recently returned from a whirlwind tour of the UK promoting her most recent release, Infinite They Went. She is currently touring Being Somebody, a show she co-wrote and performs with her 88-year-old father to sold-out audiences across the East Coast. Her theatrical works have been featured at venues such as La MaMa ETC, NYC SummerStage, and SXSW. Tragically, Marla lost her daughter Lael to suicide in 2017. Since that time Marla has been sharing her family story with the hope that it might in some way benefit others and help to remind us that we are all connected in our human experience.