Nayo

NAYO (pronounced Nigh-O) jumps out from within the Yoruba name of Temitope Odunayo Abidoye, born in Lagos, Nigeria and singing from day one. Her Nigerian culture travelled with her around the world as a girl, while she incorporated its rhythms into the new beats and sounds she found in England, the United States, and the rest of West Africa. At that young age of 10, Nayo began writing songs and found her influences in artists such as Madonna, Seal, Annie Lennox and Carole King. After a childhood on many continents, Nayo relocated to the US to further her education at Pepperdine University in Southern California, where she graduated with a degree in Business Administration and a serious passion and drive to further her musical aspirations. She was quickly performing shows in Los Angeles and New York City to crowds that warmed to her easy stage presence and the calm cool of her music. The tragic and sudden loss of her father at the end of 2004 brought a move back to Nigeria , to regroup and reflect with her grieving family. In Nigeria, Nayo looked inward, feeling torn between the ‘western’ reality that she had known and the hard and harsh realities of her nation, troubled with political and social ills of all kinds. During the electric brownouts and oil shortages, in city traffic and seeing injustice and inequality everywhere, Nayo grooved to Astrud Gilberto alongside Sade, and took heart from the politically charged lyrics of Fela Kuti and Bob Marley. She began to believe that the music was the way to give back to her people. Nayo returned to Los Angeles with renewed purpose and independently released a limited single ‘Party Fever’ which found its way as a breakout onto the Billboard Club Play Charts and various dance charts in Europe by late 2005. This unplanned breakthrough allowed Nayo to begin collaborating with producers and songwriters from New York, Los Angeles and the UK, where her true love for music first began. Her debut album simply titled ‘ AFRICAN GIRL’ was released in March 2008.