Ayo calms her inner storm in Tahiti and releases a new album Mami Wata

Through his new album Mother Moondue out September 20, singer Ayo, accomplished artist and seasoned surfer, reconnects “at the source” and calms his inner storms by going “chasing the waves” from Tahiti. The artist, revealed to the general public by the title Down on my knees in 2006, returns with a serenity that has everything to do with his change of life, initiated in the confusion linked to the Covid-19 pandemic.

At the time living in Portugal, this citizen of the world was looking to escape the confinement that was hanging over everyone’s heads by going to the other side of the world, to French Polynesia. A happy coincidence allowed her to give a concert in Tahiti… an island that she would ultimately never leave. “I needed so much to find myself and breathe and, thanks to the people of Tahiti and this culture, thanks to the sea, thanks to the waves… That was my food. It gave me so much strength.”Ayo confides to AFP, a sunny presence and piercing gaze tinged with a veil of melancholy.

In three years there, the 43-year-old artist was able to satisfy a budding passion, which has since become all-consuming: surfing. “In the morning, I do four hours. And in the evening, I do between two and four hours.”says the mother of three, two of whom have not yet left the nest. She even tried her hand at competition and surfed at Teahupoo, “special and magical wave”venue for the 2024 Olympic surfing events.

The calm before the storm

“In the ocean, there is peace. In the water, I am”says Ayo, born to a Sinti (a Roma ethnic group) mother from Germany and whose first name means «joie» in Yoruba, the native language of his Nigerian father. “I can say that it gave me a lot of calm.”assures the one whose captivating voice marries with the guitar or the piano, around folk, soul, jazz and even funk sounds.

You have to be wary of still waters… Beneath her apparent tranquility, Ayo is sometimes agitated by inner storms. “It’s the calm and the storm in me. Sometimes there are people who, when they come to my concerts, tell me: you have a lot of peace, you are so calm. And in my head, I say to myself: if they knew!”she smiled. “I like to be calm but I am a very extreme person”with sometimes “a storm” who gets up, she admits, slipping into seeking balance, at an age where “We no longer have time for stupid and ridiculous things.”

Fullness and meaning are the subject of this album, whose inspiration was nourished by this salty and peaceful environment. Already released, the track Money love reminds us that money cannot buy everything, like love or the beauty of a landscape.

Social struggles

For the one who considers herself as “a shopping queen” repented, this statement was not at first obvious. But the contact with water detached her from certain material considerations and helped her to get rid of “clothing bags”concrete way of doing things “space for something new”. “Now I prefer to chase waves than to chase clothes or objects.compare Ayo. It has become my new addiction!”

Reconnected to this nature that she calls “The source”the artist evokes adventure and freedom, but also tragedies and “injustices”. Like the migration crisis and those exiles who perish at sea or are confronted with the hostility of countries where they believed they had a better life, a subject that is under-treated according to her.

“We, as artists, have to talk about things like this.”Ayo estimates. “If I don’t become the voice of people who need a voice, I think it would be better to stop singing and make music.”