:asia)
With roots in Trinidad, W.I., Georgia, Portugal, Senegal, India, China, Sco… Read Full Bio ↴With roots in Trinidad, W.I., Georgia, Portugal, Senegal, India, China, Scotland, and New York, Electro, Hip Hop, R&B singer Asia was exposed to everything fron Doo Wop to Hip Hop, Drum & Bass, Reggae and Punk Rock. She was born in Dorchester and raised in Lynn and Roxbury, MA.
She states, "I want to make an impact with art, be provocative, and work hard at it everyday to make it speak for itself."
“From a young age I had an emotional connection with music,” recalls singer, producer, audio engineer, and promoter Asia Lakay. “I knew that I wanted to be a singer when I was 5 but I was too shy to sing in front of anybody but my cousins. My classmates heard me singing on the schoolyard and they gave me a lot encouragement to sing in front of people other than my cousins. I had a girl group with my friends in junior high and we would practice harmonizing with each other after school.” Although the group broke up before the girls graduated high school, she kept singing for local musicals and for talent scholarships.
On when she decided to become a music producer, she says “when I graduated from high school at 17, while visiting Europe, I was introduced to wider varieties of Electronic music and I decided that I wanted to be a music producer. My friend had a recording studio in his house and showed me some of the basics of how to record at home. We recorded my first demo. When I returned to the U.S. I started recording with my Aunt at her home studio.” This helped her to reveal her greatest obstacle.
“The biggest obstacle I’ve faced while pursuing my dream was feeling unable to communicate my thoughts musically. When I was in a room with musicians and they were asking me questions about styles and tempos. It felt confusing and intimidating.” After working to overcome this hurdle by taking more theory classes, she started to get an idea of what she wanted to communicate. When asked about other personal issues she states, “I had a major surgery in 2006. That made it impossible to sing while I was in recovery. Even though it was a rough time mentally and physically, I was spiritually motivated to keep pushing and keep creating.”
In recalling how she learned the art of production, she says “countless hours of practice and identifying specifically what I wanted to improve was the way that I learned how to produce audio. I went to community college and studied some music theory and I started to get a vocabulary. At home, I used to record each track from a Yamaha keyboard on a tape and then record onto a third tape recorder and repeat. Needless to say that was not the way to go about it for the best sound quality. Then I got a Tascam PocketStudio 5 and did some initial tracks with that. Then, in 2004, I went to school to study audio and video technology. I learned how to record using analog hardware and digital software as well as shoot and edit HD video with Final Cut Pro. I left school without completing my degree but continued to produce music independently, with the knowledge that I gained from my courses. Over the last few years, my studio was upgraded from a Mac Mini with GarageBand to a Macbook Pro with Ableton Live and a Synth.”
She doesn’t over respond to the pressure to be perfect because, she says “as a teen, I worked with a team of students to dissect the images of women portrayed in the media. I was aware that the images were biased. As a woman, I still feel the pressure to conform to the standards of beauty applied to artists and people who work with the public. But I make a conscious effort to put more focus on the art. I love provocative clothes and makeup and shoes that make a statement. However, as an artist, It’s important for me to feel comfortable with the statement that’s being promoted. That it’s reflecting the art. I think it’s sexy to wear revealing clothes but even sexier to carry yourself well, be intelligent and to care about people and to stand up for what you believe in.”
About the place she grew up she says, “I grew up in a few different places that were kind of close to each other but with few similarities. In, my earliest memories from living in Dorchester, I remember a lot of gunshots. I lived in Jamaica Plain and that was where I had my first Lemonade stand. It was nice. I went to school for a year in Roxbury. It was rowdy. My mom moved us to when I was in elementary school. Lynn as a city was more diverse. On the minus side, there was a visible crack-cocaine problem in the downtown area and increasingly more gang violence but on the plus side it was on the beach and there were traditions relevant to all the natives. There were Italian, Irish, Black and mixed race families that had been there forever, mixed with new immigrant families from Russia, Cambodia, Laos, Puerto Rico, Dominican Republic, Honduras, and the West Indies.”
The list of artists that she’s performed with is diverse and growing. She explains, “I recorded with my Aunt, Sista D, of Dis N Dat band. I’ve performed back vocals in her reggae band. There’s also a producer in Roxbury, named G Clef that I worked with and wrote a chorus on a song that got some buzz in Philadelphia. Then I did a recording for Critical Breakdown, a popular youth open mic in the South End of Roxbury. Later after moving to Colorado, I provided tour support as a background vocalist for a touring artist named D’Apostle of St. Croix through a late promoter in Colorado named Rasta Dave. There’s a live Drum and Bass band called Sistine Criminals, based out of Brooklyn, that I met in Boston and worked with on some tracks over the internet with and also another band, The Jazz Spastiks from Scotland. I also contributed songwriting and vocals on a track released by San Francisco based MC, Linguistics of Live Manikins. And I did a track with a producer from Minneapolis, Ross the Boss. More Colorado based Hip Hop, Jazz, and Dubstep artists & producers I’ve recorded or performed on stage with are Whygee, Kid Hum, Mike Wird, Babah Fly, DJ Cavem Moetivation, Big Wheel, Future Jazz Project, Parvata, and Sound Pollution.“
On future goals, she says that, “In the future, I’d like to return to my home state and help to create art and community centers where I grew up and in my mother’s country of Trinidad and Tobago and in Africa, in Senegal and India. In the more immediate future, I’d like to produce more collaborative albums with local, national and global artists. I’d also like to host and produce events at area nightclubs. I’d like to use my organizational and fundraising skills to plan and produce a tour. Another goal of mine is to provide scores to movies and video games. If I were not pursuing music, I’d probably be a lawyer or a politician. I’m still considering law school in the next few years. Or if not law school maybe I’ll get to play a lawyer on television.”
She states, "I want to make an impact with art, be provocative, and work hard at it everyday to make it speak for itself."
“From a young age I had an emotional connection with music,” recalls singer, producer, audio engineer, and promoter Asia Lakay. “I knew that I wanted to be a singer when I was 5 but I was too shy to sing in front of anybody but my cousins. My classmates heard me singing on the schoolyard and they gave me a lot encouragement to sing in front of people other than my cousins. I had a girl group with my friends in junior high and we would practice harmonizing with each other after school.” Although the group broke up before the girls graduated high school, she kept singing for local musicals and for talent scholarships.
On when she decided to become a music producer, she says “when I graduated from high school at 17, while visiting Europe, I was introduced to wider varieties of Electronic music and I decided that I wanted to be a music producer. My friend had a recording studio in his house and showed me some of the basics of how to record at home. We recorded my first demo. When I returned to the U.S. I started recording with my Aunt at her home studio.” This helped her to reveal her greatest obstacle.
“The biggest obstacle I’ve faced while pursuing my dream was feeling unable to communicate my thoughts musically. When I was in a room with musicians and they were asking me questions about styles and tempos. It felt confusing and intimidating.” After working to overcome this hurdle by taking more theory classes, she started to get an idea of what she wanted to communicate. When asked about other personal issues she states, “I had a major surgery in 2006. That made it impossible to sing while I was in recovery. Even though it was a rough time mentally and physically, I was spiritually motivated to keep pushing and keep creating.”
In recalling how she learned the art of production, she says “countless hours of practice and identifying specifically what I wanted to improve was the way that I learned how to produce audio. I went to community college and studied some music theory and I started to get a vocabulary. At home, I used to record each track from a Yamaha keyboard on a tape and then record onto a third tape recorder and repeat. Needless to say that was not the way to go about it for the best sound quality. Then I got a Tascam PocketStudio 5 and did some initial tracks with that. Then, in 2004, I went to school to study audio and video technology. I learned how to record using analog hardware and digital software as well as shoot and edit HD video with Final Cut Pro. I left school without completing my degree but continued to produce music independently, with the knowledge that I gained from my courses. Over the last few years, my studio was upgraded from a Mac Mini with GarageBand to a Macbook Pro with Ableton Live and a Synth.”
She doesn’t over respond to the pressure to be perfect because, she says “as a teen, I worked with a team of students to dissect the images of women portrayed in the media. I was aware that the images were biased. As a woman, I still feel the pressure to conform to the standards of beauty applied to artists and people who work with the public. But I make a conscious effort to put more focus on the art. I love provocative clothes and makeup and shoes that make a statement. However, as an artist, It’s important for me to feel comfortable with the statement that’s being promoted. That it’s reflecting the art. I think it’s sexy to wear revealing clothes but even sexier to carry yourself well, be intelligent and to care about people and to stand up for what you believe in.”
About the place she grew up she says, “I grew up in a few different places that were kind of close to each other but with few similarities. In, my earliest memories from living in Dorchester, I remember a lot of gunshots. I lived in Jamaica Plain and that was where I had my first Lemonade stand. It was nice. I went to school for a year in Roxbury. It was rowdy. My mom moved us to when I was in elementary school. Lynn as a city was more diverse. On the minus side, there was a visible crack-cocaine problem in the downtown area and increasingly more gang violence but on the plus side it was on the beach and there were traditions relevant to all the natives. There were Italian, Irish, Black and mixed race families that had been there forever, mixed with new immigrant families from Russia, Cambodia, Laos, Puerto Rico, Dominican Republic, Honduras, and the West Indies.”
The list of artists that she’s performed with is diverse and growing. She explains, “I recorded with my Aunt, Sista D, of Dis N Dat band. I’ve performed back vocals in her reggae band. There’s also a producer in Roxbury, named G Clef that I worked with and wrote a chorus on a song that got some buzz in Philadelphia. Then I did a recording for Critical Breakdown, a popular youth open mic in the South End of Roxbury. Later after moving to Colorado, I provided tour support as a background vocalist for a touring artist named D’Apostle of St. Croix through a late promoter in Colorado named Rasta Dave. There’s a live Drum and Bass band called Sistine Criminals, based out of Brooklyn, that I met in Boston and worked with on some tracks over the internet with and also another band, The Jazz Spastiks from Scotland. I also contributed songwriting and vocals on a track released by San Francisco based MC, Linguistics of Live Manikins. And I did a track with a producer from Minneapolis, Ross the Boss. More Colorado based Hip Hop, Jazz, and Dubstep artists & producers I’ve recorded or performed on stage with are Whygee, Kid Hum, Mike Wird, Babah Fly, DJ Cavem Moetivation, Big Wheel, Future Jazz Project, Parvata, and Sound Pollution.“
On future goals, she says that, “In the future, I’d like to return to my home state and help to create art and community centers where I grew up and in my mother’s country of Trinidad and Tobago and in Africa, in Senegal and India. In the more immediate future, I’d like to produce more collaborative albums with local, national and global artists. I’d also like to host and produce events at area nightclubs. I’d like to use my organizational and fundraising skills to plan and produce a tour. Another goal of mine is to provide scores to movies and video games. If I were not pursuing music, I’d probably be a lawyer or a politician. I’m still considering law school in the next few years. Or if not law school maybe I’ll get to play a lawyer on television.”
More Genres
No Artists Found
More Artists
Load All
No Albums Found
More Albums
Load All
No Tracks Found
Genre not found
Artist not found
Album not found
Search results not found
Song not found
:asia) Lyrics
To view the lyrics for a particular track, select it from the track list above, or search for it.