Sheva Sims was born in Shreveport, Louisiana to Dr. Howard Sims, Jr. and Eva Hadnot Sims. Her parents met at her father's dentist office and married, having three daughters, Sheva being the youngest daughter. As a child, Sheva earned money as a musician at church and began teaching piano and organ at eleven by helping her teacher, Elmo Walters. At fourteen, she began teaching on her own. Sheva attended West Shreveport Elementary School, J.S. Clark, and Magnet High in the gifted program, where she finished the requirements to graduate a year early and left school before her senior year. She attended LSU but transferred to Dillard and graduated with a degree in mathematics, teaching Algebra I and II and other math courses at Booker T. Washington High School and Kennedy High School in New Orleans. She went to law school at Southern University Law Center in Baton Rouge. After graduation, she returned to Shreveport and opened a law firm, and later was elected to Shreveport City Court. Sheva wrote her first song when she was in high school and played in many churches in Shreveport, New Orleans, Baton Rouge, Mansfield and Benton, Louisiana. She has recorded on two gospel albums, one playing the organ and one the piano. In 2011, Sheva won the Gospel Living Legend Award. Her favorite musical artists are Liberace and Nat King Cole. Sheva has two children, Taylor R. H. Sims and K. C. Madison Sims.