There aren’t many concept albums about leaving the sex industry, but Storry is no ordinary singer and songwriter.

When the Juno Award-nominated, Toronto-born, Mississauga-based artist performs her new 11-song album “CH III: The Come Up” for the first time at Lula Lounge on Thursday, it will come from a position of triumph. However, the adversity that she surmounted is certainly touched upon.

“‘CH III’ is more about the current state that I’m in,” explains Storry, who prefers to be known by a single name. “It’s basically the experience of leaving the sex industry and getting into the music industry only to realize that both are equally misogynistic and problematic, and dealing with all my relationships within that.”

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Storry’s story is too familiar to too many women: an exciting romantic relationship begins optimistically and deteriorates into a relationship defined by control, disparagement, bullying and a loss of individuality. It was an eight-year descent into hell that began when she was studying opera at the University of Toronto.

“I was in university and I wanted to continue my pop career,” she said during a recent interview in Parkdale.

“When you’re singing opera, you’re generally singing other people’s works. It’s very important for me to create music and I met this producer. He was pretty legit. I found him online and he had done some work in the city, though not with anyone famous.”

“It’s basically the experience of leaving the sex industry and getting into the music industry only to realize that both are equally misogynistic and problematic,” Storry says of her new album. (STEVE RUSSELL / TORONTO STAR)

What began professionally soon turned personal.

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“I started going in the studio with him, and then I lost my virginity to him and fell in love,” Storry recalls. “A few months later he put me in a strip club and took all my money every night for a year.

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“He was very abusive toward me — physically, verbally, emotionally — he told me that I wasn’t a good singer; that I wasn’t a good writer; that I was basically nothing without him.

“I had no friends. I was not allowed social media. I didn’t have a computer. I wasn’t allowed to read. Because I was young and vulnerable — it’s your first love. You really don’t know much else.”

When the relationship ended, Storry was left financially and emotionally bankrupt.

“When I left, he took all the music, all the hard drives and the studio and the money and left me with a debt.

“It was really hard. I basically had the clothes on my back, which were hand-me-down clothes. I never bought anything during the time that I was with him.

“I had that and my guitar and that was it. I moved back in with my mom and I didn’t want to do music anymore.”

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Up until that fateful romance, Storry had been sailing along creatively.

Although her Rexdale upbringing wasn’t easy — “we always struggled with money and I was a bit of a referee for my parents growing up” — she says she was always a happy kid and that a singing career was always in the cards.

“Literally, when I was singing my ABCs people were telling me I had a beautiful voice and that I should sing,” says Storry.

“I don’t remember my life without singing.”

After choosing music over medicine as a career option, she relocated to Montreal, finishing high school and then attending Vanier College to study vocal jazz. But at that school, “they force you to do one year of classical music,” said Storry, who also plays violin, guitar and piano. “I ended up liking it and a teacher told me I could be the next Maria Callas.”

Storry stuck with opera, returning to continue her studies at the University of Toronto — and displaying enough versatility to explore some pop options. “My peers loved the way I sang classical because it sounded really soulful,” she recalled.

“I find that a lot of people who do pop or R&B or soul don’t generally sing classical music, and people who sing classical music can’t really sing pop and soul with that kind of authenticity. So I think that’s one of my biggest assets.”

The dark relationship followed. Once it ended, Storry hightailed it to the subcontinent for a three-month yoga retreat with the full intention of becoming a yoga instructor and opening up a vegan restaurant with her aunt upon her return. However, “there’s something about India that bombards your senses in every way and so it really forces you to be in the moment.

“There were all these omens telling me specifically to get back into music.“

Storry returned to Canada in 2015 and called up her pal Yotam Baum, a classical pianist and music prof at Bishop’s University. “I said, ‘Hey, I know you don’t know what’s been going on in my life, but you’re the first person I thought of when I thought I needed to write a concept album about it.’ I trusted him and knew he would allow me to be my fully expressed self.”

He ended up as the co-writer and co-producer of the album.

Storry, meanwhile, reclaimed her life “by just working on myself,” attending Co-Dependence Anonymous meetings, meditating and seeing a therapist.

“Also, just having a support system around me of people who really loved me and believed in me really helped.”

She describes the unflinching “CH III: The Come Up” as a “3D version of an exotic dancer.” She released “Leave My Heart Behind,” the first single to showcase her soulfully powerful alto, in May 2019.

Two more songs followed over the summer: the stigma-challenging “House & a Range” and “You Don’t Know Me (Nah Nah).” Her latest, “Money Ain’t Free” has received airplay on numerous CBC radio outlets.

Storry’s 2020 Juno nomination isn’t for “CH III: The Come Up,” but for “Another Man,” under the category of Best Reggae Recording. It’s a collaborative track she recorded in Jamaica with producers (and rhythm-section legends) Sly Dunbar and Robbie Shakespeare that’s included on their “Pocket Book Riddim” compilation.

“I had been going to Jamaica almost every year for the past 10 to 12 years,” she said. A friend revealed he was friends with Dunbar. “So I went (to the studio) and Sly asked me to sing a verse and a chorus a cappella. He loved me right away and said, ‘OK, let’s work.’ I ended up staying for three months.”

As for her time as an exotic dancer, Storry has mixed feelings about her former profession.

“I personally would never have been a dancer had I not been coerced into it in the first place. When I was initially starting, I actually cried every day for two years. But going back to it, I was able to reclaim the space as my own, which was very important for me. I didn’t realize how important that was for me.

“I saw the empowerment that can be found in that job — and the freedom that can be found and there are parts that I really did enjoy. I loved the fact that I could go to work when I want, leave when I want. The flexibility was really important to me in order to do and fund my art.

“And if I didn’t like somebody and I didn’t want to dance for them, I could tell them to f--k off. There’s not that many jobs where you can really do that, right?”

Storry laments the lack of “warmth and camaraderie” among strippers, and adds that “there’s a lot of exploitation in that industry.” But she added that the job “gives you a lot of skill sets that you can build on.”

“I was an introvert when I went into that industry and I learned how to be an extrovert. Now it’s served me so well that I can go into a million meetings with just about anyone in the industry and not feel intimidated.”

Storry still feels solidarity with those plying her old trade: “I want all sex workers to realize that they’re all valuable. We’re all worthy. We all just need to love ourselves.”