NefTUNES

Nefertiti Akinyela is a musician/poet/songwriter/singer/producer from Decatur, Ga who is currently residing in Tallahassee, Fl. Raised in a family with African-centered values and customs, shei always felt as if she stood out among schoolmates, but was able to find her place despite this. As a child she always had a profound love for music, she even used to create musical instruments out of items around the house. She enjoyed working with subjects that involved telling a story or writing, but music was her first love. At the age of 12, she began playing the trumpet in the school's orchestra. During that year she was selected to be in the district's honor band as well as it's honor chorus. She continued in the orchestra and began to experiment with other brass instruments like the baritone. In high school she joined the Southwest Dekalb Marching Band, making the district's honor band another 3 times before becoming the section leader of the trumpet section in her senior year as well as learning to play the trombone. ************************************************************ ***************Nefertiti began to seriously write poetry at 15 while studying a poetry series in school. The series of study lasted only a week, but she never stopped writing poetry. Because the subject matter of her poetry at the time felt so private and personal to her, she only shared the poems she wrote with close friends and family. She continued her poetry writing throughout her high school career and even after enrolling in Florida A&M University. ************************************************************ ***************Although she had only played brass instruments in her band experience, Nefertiti always had an urge to play a stringed instrument (in fact, she first tried out on the double bass, but they said her hands were too small). After much begging and pleading with her parents to buy her a guitar and receiving it, she let it sit in the case for a full year. ************************************************************ ***************During the spring of 2005 Nefertiti met a stranger walking by strumming his guitar and singing songs. The man's name was King David and he said that he was on his way to give a lesson. From there she began to take lessons from him every week, if not twice a week. A few weeks into their sessions, she found her singing voice along with even more motivation to write (it gets kind of blurry here :). She began to write and perform songs for friends. ************************************************************ ***************That summer, fueled by the courage and support from her friends and family, Nefertiti started performing the second song she had ever written, "Sounds Like", at Atlanta Steakhouse in Lithonia, Ga at their weekly open-mic. When she returned to Tallahassee, she began performing at Amen-Ra's Bookstore and Perry's Lounge where she met Glenn Jr. (producer of "Your Truck" and "Mainframe"). Through performing at Amen-Ra's she met Jadnack Defrank aka DJ Haitian Papi, former host of the Underground, who showed a real interest in her music and approached her with the idea to remake Lupe Fiasco's "Kick, Push". From that collaboration came, "Toast To The Struggle". They recorded the song in Nefertiti's bedroom on a laptop that was given to her as a gift. She is currently writing, playing, producing, singing, recording, and performing in Tallahassee and Atlanta. Currently on myspace too much of the time, but only because she thinks the people are ready for a change, they just don't know it's possible... ************************************************************ ***************The story is yet untold, so I guess we have to wait until the pages unfold.... In reality, my life hasn't even been lived yet.