ÇOTEARS (she/her/they)

Living around London during my childhood, I've grown up around such diverse sounds of music. That is the culture, and I love every experience of it. I'd find myself on days just alternating between so many different artists and genres. One day it was Nina Simone. The next day it was Max Richter, or Adele. Next thing, I was listening to Alice in chains, or musical soundtracks. Being of African descent, I’d also been surrounded by so much modern & traditional music of the African diaspora. There was never a time I couldn’t appreciate what each style of music brought out of me. 

​I'd always had a fixation with music and the feelings it created. I have many core memories of when I used to listen to records of classical guitar music on car rides around the city with my dad. Something I now ironically find myself replicating in the songs I arrange today. Musicians like, Earl Klugh, Mateus Asato, Willie Colón and Manuel Gardner-Fernandes continue to inspire me to never lose that first love of where my interest in writing really began. As I continue to grow through life, I am constantly inspired by every noise, feeling and genre that surrounds me to create new art. And to also repurpose old art, and honour it for the beauty it once served. 

Though I do find myself reaching for the guitar in almost everything I write, I am also a classically trained harpist, violinist and pianist. Having studied my degree in music production, I find the art I make these days telling deeper stories. Far beyond the days of messing around with melodies I liked on the family keyboard or my dads’ guitar. 

To have been exposed to this level of musical influences, has only left a greater curiosity within me to understand what feels like an infinite art form. These concepts can be best phrased by some of my favourite quotes:

“Where words fail, music speaks.” ― Hans Christian Andersen

“Music is a language that doesn’t speak in particular words. It speaks in emotions, and if it’s in the bones, it’s in the bones.” ― Keith Richards