Milwaukee-based Palestinian-American singer-songwriter *aya has had a lifetime fantasy of being an artist.
She also had a longtime fear that she couldn’t do it.
“I just kept telling myself that couldn’t be me,” *aya told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. “I’m too introverted and awkward.”
“Eventually I was just like, ‘Well, we are just going to try,'” she said. “I have all these emotions in me, all these thoughts. I have a lot of creativity within me that was waiting to be unleashed.”
About three years ago, *aya finally found the strength and determination to finish and record songs and perform them. Braver still has been the kind of music she makes: R&B songs that are incredibly personal, and powerful.
“All of my music is really vulnerable and raw and honest,” she said. “You don’t really know me unless you hear my music. Ever since I started writing (songs), it’s just been my personal diary.”
Many people are getting to know *aya through her work. Hometown gigs have included a slot this year at one of the world’s largest music festivals, Summerfest, as an opener for Afrobeats breakout Ayra Starr, who *aya said she looks up to and is inspired by. She’s gotten lots of support from WYMS-FM (88.9), aka Radio Milwaukee, and provided vocals on breakout Milwaukee singer and rapper J.P.’s new EP “Took a Turn.”
And now *aya is joining a growing list of noted up-and-coming artists being featured for the USA TODAY Acoustic series, including The Castellows, Morgan Wade, Jordana Bryant, Maddox Batson, Lola Kirke, Laundry Day, Allison Mahal and Buffalo Nichols.
From Amy Winehouse to Arabic music legends, the artists that inspired *aya
There weren’t musicians in *aya’s family, but there was always music playing in her house.
“I grew up listening to a lot of Whitney Houston and Michael Jackson,” she said. “Fairuz and Umm Kulthum, those are the two main artists I grew up on the Arabic side. And Amy Winehouse is one of my biggest music inspirations to this day, one of the big pushes for me to start actually writing my own music.”
Learning to bare all in her music
Singing since she was a little kid, *aya recalled her sister’s best friend growing up, who was in a choir, telling her to join a choir, too. She did from middle school through high school and did school musicals, as well.
“When I was in high school, I had my little ukulele and would write little verses here and there, but I never committed to writing a song,” *aya said. But she began to appreciate how the songs from her favorite artists made her feel and aspired to do that, in turn.
“At the time I started writing music I was listening to a lot of artists like Amy Winehouse, Jill Scott, Ari Lennox, artists that are very raw and honest about the things that they go through and experience,” *aya said. “They’re kind of the artists that say things the way you think them but you can’t put into words. I really resonated with that.”
“I guess I just wanted to harness my insecurities and make it something valuable to me and to others,” she continued. “A lot of people, they’re afraid to talk about their emotions and bare their feelings out on their sleeve, and I want to create a safe space for people. … I just want to normalize the human experience and being a person, and I’m being real. That’s all I can be, my authentic self.”
Songs from *aya you have to hear — including one yet to be released
That’s exactly who *aya is as an artist — and why her music is so good.
She performed three of her strongest songs for USA TODAY Acoustic, including a song that has yet to be released, “Talk is Cheap,” about, she says, “being a yapper.” She draws from her own experience for the song, as she does for all of them.
“‘Certified yapper’ is a coined term of Gen Z right now and younger; I thought it would be a song people would relate to,” she said. “I don’t know if I’ve heard many songs about people talking and talking and talking.”
The song also sees *aya take stock of her shortcomings, how “my self-control is not always there when it comes to yapping.” That kind of open self-reflection also makes “Unknown,” also performed for USA TODAY Acoustic, so captivating.
“‘Unknown’ is probably one of my favorite songs I ever wrote,” she said. “It is the first ballad I ever wrote. It was also the first song I ever wrote in a stream of consciousness and sat down and poured my emotions out in a Notes app.”
“I have always struggled with the anxiety around the unknown and not trusting that everything is going to be OK,” she continued. “I still struggle with that to this day.”
That’s especially true in her relationships, she added, the song addressing when “you’re not treating yourself how you should be treated in a relationship and knowing that it’s not good for you or the person you’re with,” she said.
“Like RuPaul always says, ‘If you don’t love yourself, how the hell are you going to love anybody else?’,” she said. “I had to learn it the hard way. … Love is not sustainable unless you are pouring it into yourself.”
From that learning comes the third song performed for USA TODAY Acoustic, “Pink Lady,” set to a bossa nova beat. It’s an atypically happy *aya track that is just as vivid and personal as her soul-baring work, inspired by a trip to a pumpkin patch with someone she was falling for.
“‘Pink Lady’ I want to say was one of my first happy love songs I ever wrote,” she said. “I kind of got stuck in a loop of only using music and songwriting when I was feeling negative emotions. But with ‘Pink Lady’ I wanted to bring the feeling of the warmth and excitement of a new love I was feeling at the time.”
What *aya aspires for next
Just as *aya fantasized about being a musical artist as a kid, she has other fantasies — including a hope that someday she might perform a Tiny Desk Concert for NPR. And she has some new music she is planning to release soon, including an official recording of “Talk is Cheap.”
But she admits that she doesn’t “like things that make (music) feel like a job,” and is taking her journey “day by day.”
“I started (music) not seeking fame or anything or blowing up or virality,” she said. “I don’t really look for that. I just share my art and see whatever comes out of it. I just do this because I love it.”
Contact Piet Levy at (414) 223-5162 or plevy@journalsentinel.com. Follow him at facebook.com/PietLevyMJS.
This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: ‘You don’t really know me unless you hear my music.’ Get to know rising R&B artist *aya
Reporting by Piet Levy, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel / Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
