Ayoni has pop music running through her veins. Inspired by the likes of Lorde and Adele, the Barbadian singer has used her music as an avenue for self-discovery. Ayoni’s debut project, Iridescent, encapsulates her journey through adolescence and the tribulations of growing up as a woman.
But her music journey has flourished into adulthood, with stunning singles like “September”, “If You Leave”, “The Patriots”, and a co-production and featured credit on Ricky Reed’s “No Stone” with Dirty Projectors. Ayoni’s music is heavily influenced by both personal experiences and worldwide events. Her response to Black Lives Matter, “Unmoved (A Black Woman Truth)”, was labeled by Ones to Watch as “one of the most powerful songs that has come across our desk in 2020.”
22-year-old Ayoni was born in Barbados. With her Barbadian heritage and time living in Singapore, Indonesia, and the US, Ayoni continues to draw from her experiences as a young Black woman and immigrant to guide her musical journey. Ayoni implores electricity, brightness, confidence, and genre-fluidity. Her ethereal pop sound, along with her talent for piano, guitar and technical production, makes her a unique voice for a world audience. Ayoni pushes the sonic boundaries by infusing her moody and ethereal pop sound with the soul of the island that nurtured her and the legends before her that deeply inspired her such as Whitney Houston, Aretha Franklin and Etta James.
Ayoni on Iridescent:
"Iridescent is a good night when you realize it; The dance floor at 3am, the arms of your lover, a freeway ride, and newfound freedom. It is also the morning after, the train ride home, and the silence when the door closes and you’re alone again. Created as a chronology to my first year in South Central from Jakarta, Indonesia, this record is everything at once. It relishes in the intensity of the heights *because* it knows that the lows will come, and it holds you through them. The word iridescent describes something ‘showing luminous colours that seem to change when seen from different angles’. I chose this word as the title of this project because each of the 8 tracks differ entirely from each other in theme and genre, but they all still stunningly inform who I am and how I came to be. Iridescent is heartbreak, loneliness, pain, anger, joy, power, peace, lust, love, and destiny, but most of all it is true. I am iridescent. This is my coming of age and an extended invitation to the world I created for myself."