Starting her musical journey at the age of 5 in Sofia, Bulgaria, NIA has lived across Europe, Latin America, and the Middle East, blending classical cello with her profound love for jazz and RnB. After winning numerous international competitions and performing with artists like Burna Boy, Emily Sandé, and Jamala, and sharing the stage with notable Dutch artists, NIA has released her own debut EP "Freefall" this spring, introducing the world to her sound. Just as she was about to perform at the Hidden Gem Studio in an intimate setting, we had a moment to reflect on her journey & discuss her process.
Hi, I'm NIA. Tonight I'll play my original music from my EP that came out a few months ago. It's a set of songs that tell a story that helped me after graduating, going into the real professional musician life. It's just my story and inviting people to relate if they can in any way.
How would you describe the sound of NIA?
I would describe it as a mixture of a lot of genres. It's mainly R&B influenced, neo-soul as well, but also a lot of jazz and some classical things, because I'm a classically trained musician, cellist. My mom is a jazz singer, so I grew up in a very jazzy environment and basically all over, every style, every genre was there while I was growing up. But yeah, it's mainly neo-soul and R&B jazz with classical influences.
Is there a message you’d like to convey in your music?Â
Yeah, I think actually writing this music was more of a message to myself, to kind of just do what feels right, and things will follow, more than worry about how things will work the other way around. So I guess my message is more of just follow what you feel, what feels good and yeah just stay true to your gut feeling and do that and the rest will just follow I guess. Freefall.
What was the process of Freefall EP coming together like?
Yeah, the process was very messy because I had no clue about recording an album, like recording in general, anything, only mostly live recordings and just playing live, but I had no clue what the whole process that it was a huge thing to actually record an album. It doesn't matter if it's two, or three, or ten songs. It takes the same effort, actually. So yeah, I just wrote everything by myself, all the piano parts, and the vocals, and I always wanted to add strings, so I constantly kept the strings element in mind. Then I just brought it over to my friends. All the band members are really good friends of mine ,and just nice people that I've worked with throughout the years. They all really helped with figuring out the groove, making the groove right, and the bass lines, and everybody added a little bit of themselves to the music. I actually met Anton, who's the keyboard player of the band, and he really helped me with elevating the music with production, adding more sounds, more of an electronic vibe here and there, also writing all the string arrangements. He was really the person that helped me and really could see my vision and was really excited to work with me through all of this. He definitely really, really helped. It was a long process.
Tijmen de Nooy Photography
How do you feel in this current chapter of your life, in your music, in your art?Â
Well, yeah, it's still pretty crazy in a sense that I had a few quite bigger gigs that just came out really quick and sudden. And I couldn't really even fully process what was happening, when, how, and why. But I guess now I'm just more starting to see that it's rolling and things are happening. And I'm just really excited because I'm just open and I have to start writing some new music soon. So that's for sure coming up.
What’s in store for NIA in the near future?
I'm just open to whatever comes. Next week, I got the call yesterday. I have to play in the London Stadium and Glastonbury Festival. So actually with Snoh Aalegra, she's one of my super favorite R&B singers. With her and Burna Boy again, I already played with him once. So yeah, that's pretty big I guess. I'm excited. That's coming up. And yeah, mainly I'm going to lock myself in the studio for a few days to try and write some more songs so I can have a longer set. So my goal is to eventually perform more live.
Is there anything else you’d like to share?
I'm excited for the performance and yeah, just excited to finally share my own music with the world. So that's exciting, yeah.
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