Underrated artists that you should know about : Ama Lou

 

Hey Charlie ! I'm really excited to present to you my article because I think it could be a great thing to start with for my first time here. Everybody loves music so I thought that it was the best to talk about some underrated artists that deserves some appreciation and recognition.

    Today I decided to introduced you to an artist that will definitely be someone bigger in the music industry. Ama Lou is a young singer of 20 years old, who is from London. She grew up in the Borough of Hackney, in the north of the English capital. Her musician father was the one who pass on his love for music to her. She took her first steps in the field at the age of 8, by learning how to play guitar before starting to write our own texts at 11 years old.  Two years later, one of her middle school's teacher encourage her to take singing lessons as she was seeing potential in the young Londoner. She pursue her musical journey by a classical training to gain experience and improve her skills and talent.

    Everything has started in 2016 when Ama Lou released her first single called TBC (To Be Confirmed), written during a trip to New York and inspired by current events such as the Black Lives Matter movement. She's denouncing police brutality that POC are facing regularly and how affected she was by the tragic murder of Eric Garner, a black man who died strangulated by a police officer during an inspection.  "I can't, I can't, I can't breathe" she sings in an emotional voice the last words of this man that will remain forever in our memories. So that's through her writing that she's delivering political messages. Her work has successfully caught the attention of the rapper Drake, through whom she ends up being co-signed. He immediately post an image of him on his Instagram account, wearing a t-shirt from Ama Lou's merch. He'll even admit that she inspired him in some way during the recording of his album Scorpion.

2018 is her golden year. The Londoner releases DDD (Dawn, Day and Dusk) an EP in the form of a thirteen minutes short film. Filmed with the help of her sister and directed by the artist herself, the mini film takes us into California's desert in which Ama Lou wanders around from dawn to sunset. The video is giving us such an impressive and beautiful visual quality, confirming that the artist is much more than a simple singer. Her moving lyrics sung by her hoarse and comforting voice has succeeded in arousing the curiosity of Jorja Smith, one of the most trending singer of the UK, who invited her to make the premiere of her tour in the USA.

In late 2019 and early 2020, she released a second EP named Ama Who, which includes the track NORTHSIDE, a love anthem dedicated to her childhood town. The music video has over 2 millions views on YouTube and it's one of her most streamed songs.  In her track called FAR OUT, she's speaking truthfully from the heart about how she felt misunderstood and how hard it is to be herself without facing criticism when singing with such a soft vulnerability " And I'm only better when I'm dreaming [...] I wish I had more secrets ". We tried, we tried is a cover that she made of Let It Go, which is originally a song from the rapper Hi Tek featuring Talib Kweli and Dion.

In my opinion, Ama Lou is an artist that we need in the music industry nowadays. I love RnB since day one, and I think she has such a refreshing style, there's something in her songs that stand out and make her special.  What makes me fall in love with her music, is probably how simple her songs can be but her raspy and still soothing voice is giving colors and character to it and that is something that it's part of her identity as a musician.

That's all for today, I hope that you enjoyed my article and maybe even makes you want to learn much more about her and stream her songs.