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Nama Ray

About

London-based Soul singer/songwriter Nama Ray unleashes dreamy music that expands the heart and exposes the warm depths of her soulful center. Her songs shimmer with contagious melodies and complex harmonies bubbling up with elements of soul, jazz, folk and the Blues. Inspired by powerhouses like Aretha Franklin, Joss Stone, Emeli Sandé and Lianna La Havas, Nama Ray is currently basking in the soulful and cool vibes of her newest single, “Never Told You". The song and its accompanying music video were both released in November 2016. Nama Ray's versatile voice glides through introspective ballads, danceable pop tunes and all the layers in between, delivering heartfelt lyrics about the love, sorrow, transformation and the joys and triumphs of the human experience. Through cathartic live performances and thoughtful recordings, she reveals stories about her magical inner world and encourages others to live their authentic selves. "Her vocals have a clean, eccentric quality to them. It sounds like she has tons of experience singing, but she avoids the trap of sounding too theatrical. Somehow, she sings with conviction that pulls you right into the song." – eartotheground, blog Born in Switzerland within a family of music lovers and multi-instrumentalists, Nama Ray first felt the otherworldly rapture of music while listening to her parents’ extensive record collection. A shy and quiet child, she secretly sang along to soul, R&B, pop, rock and funk by artists such as Aretha Franklin and Simply Red and was encouraged to take up piano lessons at the age of 8. The energy of Celine Dion’s album Let’s Talk about Love gave her the courage and inspiration to sing out loud and start to make up her own songs in order to express her emotions. In her teens, she dedicated herself to fine-tuning her skills while touring Switzerland with Gospel choirs and singing and writing new material in local bands with friends. At the same time, she took formal voice and music lessons, exploring music theory, music history as well as classical, jazz, pop and soul repertoire. Even when Nama's journey led her to earn a bachelors degree and became a primary school teacher for several years, she kept her eye on a singing career and dreamed of being a professional musician. In 2012, the pull of music inspired her to leave Switzerland and move to London where she started studying Music Performance and Vocals at London Music School and blazed ahead as a professional singer/songwriter. In 2014, she released a four-song EP, Hope with a full band made up of a talented group of her contemporaries, featuring Cal Wymann, lead guitarist of the Swiss rock band Daxx&Roxanne as well as London-based pianist Benjamin Buttler. Zurich – based producer Bilgi Sakarya discovered Nama Ray's talent and in July the soulful debut single 'Summer' was released through Sakarya's label Audeo Productions. Nama Ray continues to live, write, record and perform in both the UK and Switzerland while she expands her horizons by experimenting with a multitude of styles and genres that make her spirit sing. She is currently working on new songs, to be released this year. Her latest single 'Never Told You' is available now.