MySpacea place for friends

In 2006 Afua found herself growing closer to perfecting a sound around her vocal stylings and technique and soon set her sights on completing her own solo work. That same year she was fortunate to cross paths with up and coming emcee/producer/engineer: Indie Hip-Hop artist Tavi and reconnected with high-school buddy, Mercury of the Dugout to craft a sensual sound of collaborative rhythms, beats and sounds derivative of West Africa, the Caribbean and the epic soul of Black American music. This spring marks the debut of Invisible Woman, an autonomous collection of diversified melodies and thoughtful songwriting, gently crafted in the grain of rhythm and blues, hip-hop and soul while moving further toward something different altogether. Equal parts sacred and secular, Afua rests on the conventions of traditional gospel techniques and organic soul coupled with experimental drum and bass, ambient psychedelic grooves and good old dance music.

Raised in a diverse Brooklyn Baptist Church, taught and re-taught Hymns by her southern grandmother, and prone to intrinsic rhythms of her father’s West African homeland, Afua Addo has struggled to adequately conjure raw, under-explored elements of the musical genres she loves and adores. In the late 1990’s, jazz pianist extraordinaire, Pete Malinverni began composing jazz suites based on the Psalms of David. Upon Afua’s graduation from college and subsequent return to NYC, she began singing with Pete and his trio. That led to Pete arranging the 139th Psalm for Afua in 2005. Along with other amazing jazz vocalists and musicians, Afua was featured on the cd/dvd Joyful in 2006. Later that year she recorded her own Sacred Soul with Pete Malinverni on piano for limited release. Sacred featured an array of calm, soothing traditional hymns and started off with her very own, “Pray.” Mercury soon invited “Pray” to be included on his Natural Black Mixtape, featuring a collection of inspiring underground artists. This marriage of sacred and secular, fast and slow, new and old, Africa and America is really more of who Afua may be rather than what she is trying to convey through her versatile vocal styling ebbing across gospel, soul, funk and everything in between.

Powerfully motivated by eye-opening early successes on stage, in front of congregations and alongside jazz greats of the world, Afua is ambitious in her writing, focused in her musical production and unafraid to sidestep convention in an effort to retain total control of innovative musical interpretation. Poised, beautiful and always ready to create more; you surely have never heard a voice like hers before.