21-year-old Barbadian pop singer Ayoni delivered her her debut project Iridescent October 18, 2019. The venture positions her as one of the most intriguing musician to enter the pop field today with any semblance of Lorde and Adele.
Ayoni’s Music Journey
Ayoni often examines themes of strength and identity in her music. The eight-track Iridescent LP, which beautifully mixes indie vibes with pop and R&B, explores romance and finding peace, as well as the beauty of femininity. Discussing the inspiration behind the album, Ayoni said in a statement, “It relishes in the intensity of the heights because it knows that the lows will come, and it holds you through them. Iridescent is heartbreak, loneliness, pain, anger, joy, power, peace, lust, love, and destiny, but most of all it is true. I am iridescent. This is my coming of age and an extended invitation to the world I created for myself.”
Born in Barbados and later finding home in Singapore, Indonesia and the US, her music is lined with her experiences as a young Black woman and an immigrant navigating the world and finding her identity through it all. Playing the piano, guitar and producing, Ayoni pushes the sonic boundaries by infusing her moody and ethereal pop sound Aretha Franklin, Patrice Rushen and Frank Ocean. Her music also implores electricity and brightness as she confidently and uniquely uses genre-fluidity to speak to a world audience.
Ayoni has dropped a new thought-provoking tune titled “Unmoved (A Black Woman Truth).” The track, which the Barbados-born star released on June 30, details the trials of the Black experience and the pain felt in the loss of Black lives. “Are you sitting comfortable / While we bleed in vain / I’ve died by other names,” Ayoni quavers. Proceeds from the song will be donated to Black and Pink, a prison abolitionist organization that supports LGBTQ+ and HIV-positive prisoners.
“The Black woman’s power is feared by many — and rightfully so — we are forces in all our divinity, but we are not immortal warriors,” Ayoni said in a statement. “We are human beings deserving of a world that values us. We are told we aren’t as beautiful, or ‘marketable,’ or deserving, or important, or as ‘delicate,’ yet we continue to invent and innovate. I mourn Breonna Taylor, Sandra Bland, Oluwatoyin Salau, Dominique Fells, and the many more Black cis, trans, queer, disabled, and/or unhoused sisters, the world continues to fail. We are the unseen and unheard too often, but it is for those reasons that I dare to be unmovable in my resistance and resilience.”
Instagram
YouTube
Twitter
SoundCloud
