Her influences ranged from Chinese opera, Jimi Hendrix, Nick Drake and Patrice Rushen to
name a few. She was born and raised in London to Singaporean grandparents, a teenage
mother and Irish-Scottish father. They were both hippies at the time and this influenced Aya
later on in life. After listening to a variation of musical genres her passion for music took off.
At the tender age of four she began singing and left for New York at the age of eighteen.
New York City attracted many of her heroes, and here she would become a professional
recording artist. In NYC she would collaborate and song write for Lenny Kravitz (“Thinking of
You”), which was a single released on his album called ‘5’. She also hooked up with Pharcyde
on the record (“Lab Cabin California”). These records amazingly, both went gold. Soon after
this rush of success she began creating tracks with Stuart Matthewman. S. Mathewman was a
well-known guitarist and songwriter from super star Soul singer Sade. They featured Aya on
seven tracks on the Sweetback album. Aya was truly networking and she built up some
friends that would make her who she is today. Stuart introduced her to Itaal Shur (Grammy
winning songwriter) and Jay Denes, founder of Naked-Music and member of Blue Six.
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