The sounds of Luciano Pavarotti, Sade, Fela Kuti, Ella Fitzgerald,
Diana Ross, Patti LaBelle, Barbara Streisand, Marvin Gaye and Aretha
Franklin tickled the earbuds of Ayo Awosika as she grew up in Northern
Virginia outside the Washington D.C. area. It was obvious that at the
tender age of 14 the music seed had been firmly planted in the
right-side of her brain and that a music career was the only one she
could choose to passionately pursue.
"Music has been a way for me to figure out what I'm feeling or what I
want to say when my words aren't good enough… "
The now classically trained vocalist has transferred her aptitude for
opera and art song to the world of jazz. Ayo brings new life and
interpretation to jazz standards heard many times over. She has aimed
to be a musician with more substance, more ability and more
originality than the typical Top 40 radio favorites. Ayo's influences
include her surroundings and observations. She's an artist who has
something to say, and with a heritage rooted in West Africa, and
recent travels that reach Japan, Germany, England and France, she's
been tweaking her style; mixing a love for the complexity and depth of
jazz and soul with the honesty and familiarity of folk and roots
music, working to find the place where these worlds meet.
"Playing music is like having a conversation..in my opinion the best
way to convey emotion of any kind."
She has soaked in the jazz history of Ella Fitzgerald, Billie Holiday,
and Carmen McCrae, absorbed the songwriting knowledge of Joni Mitchell
and Lizz Wright and carved a niche for herself as a vocalist with
prowess beyond her 24 years.
Welcome to the ever evolving world of Ayo… enjoy…
For booking or otherwise, please send an email to: [email protected]
I edited my profile with Thomas Myspace Editor V4.4 (www.strikefile.com/myspace)
