Asialakay.com | Blog

“From a young age I had an emotional connection with music, but it was also spiritual. I most appreciated songs with uplifting content,” recalls singer, producer, audio engineer, and promoter Asia Lakay. “My great aunt taught me my first blues scale on her piano and at 4, her nephew showed me how to make a C Major chord. I thought I wanted to be a singer when I was 5 but I had the worst stage fright except for when I sang with my cousins.“

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 Lynn when I was in elementary school. She had me young and ended up married in a physically abusive relationship when my father went to prison. But she did the best she could to give me better opportunities.”

Lynn, as a city, was more suburban than Dorchester. The family was isolated from other family members but Asia had strong support system in the community. She had friends, mentors, and as she got older, employers that helped her stay focused on her dreams and giving back. She says that “there was a visible crack-cocaine problem in the downtown area and increasingly more gang violence. I worked with a team to help moderate peace between rival gangs and at-risk youth.”

“On the flip side,” she says, “it was an ideal place to grow up because it was on the beach and there were traditions relevant to all the natives. Like Pop Warner football and Cheerleading. And if you mention Kelly’s Roast Beef, most people who went to high school there would know about it. 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.”

“Singing took away stress. My classmates heard me singing on the schoolyard and they asked me to sing while they practice their cheerleading routines. From then, I was a featured vocalist at all school functions. I had a girl group with my friends in junior high and we would practice harmonizing with each other after school in between talking about boys.” The group went in different directions when the girls were in high school, but she kept singing at open mics, for local musicals and to win regional 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 keys, 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. “There’s still a lot to learn. But I’m making steady progress and I’m really appreciative about the work that’s going into making the music the best.” 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. But I still wrote and planned. 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.”

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. We performed and opened for Anthony B at the Boulder Theatre. 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 Glasgow, Scotland. I also contributed songwriting and vocals on a track released by San Francisco based MC, Linguistics of Live Manikins. More Colorado based Hip Hop, Jazz, and Dubstep artists & producers I’ve recorded or performed on stage with include Whygee, Kid Hum, Mike Wird, Babah Fly, DJ Cavem Moetivation, Big Wheel, Future Jazz Project, Parvata, and Sound Pollution and more.“

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.”