LP33: New Music - Discover, Enjoy, Share 

nia andrews’ Bio

my walk is one of default. or maybe not. the tools are there and i readily employ them, sometimes without knowing what i've done except in hindsight.

i am truly, without a doubt, curious. my first curiosity was music and sound. there was a piano in my house; i learned to play it with no instruction from the time i could sit up on my own. was blessed to play with very talented musicians, hiding the fact that i couldn't read the notes. i picked up some theory along the way, ready to absorb whatever i could. the irony in this is that my father is a music teacher. i hear he's an amazing pianist also. they say my hands look just like his. bet my hands are bigger than your hands...

anywho, wanting to protect me from the vicious world of music, pops succeeded and the ivories were abandoned for another set of keys. words swallowed me up, and somehow along the way i grew into the shoes of a pretty mean writer. a writer's writer. my fingers stayed agile, my ears stayed sharp. i kept exploring, exposing myself to a lot of music without realizing what i was doing. a musician's ear is (or sh/could be) critical. i knew i could hold a note, sure, but never thought it much beyond that.

my vocal training came from long commutes in los angeles, with bizarre, continuous break-ins in my car all over the city, leaving me without a radio over and over again for two years. i sang in the car to pass the time in traffic...it took some time to notice that "holding a note" and "singing" are two distinctly different animals. the voice, i hear, is the hardest instrument to train. yet, the former animal casually blended into the latter. this secret i maintained for many years. blame my reserve...i can be a very shy young lady...

secretly singing and songwriting in LA as mere hobbies, it felt as though Something said "ENOUGH already!", because fast forward years later: i'm working as common's right hand (yes, that rap guy), and he unexpectedly calls me to the microphone to sing in front of about 5000 people...the sound blew out on a song called "the light", and well, SOMEbody had to sing the break. that impromptu experience was my first time singing alone in public. it was my first time singing into a microphone. i've been in love ever since, and with it, writing is my medicine. having shed my reserve on stage, the jig is now up. i have since toured with common, with lauryn hill, performed with mary j. blige, recorded with shafiq of sa-ra, jammed with zap mama and mark de clive-lowe, and written for up and comers whom i can't wait for you to hear :).

it has truly been a joy to have circled back around to my first curiosity with new and heightened interest. i suppose it was about time. i am writing voraciously. i hope you will enjoy what i've been conjuring. more soon soon come...