Tomi Owó has been working hard for this moment. The Lagos-bred singer whose sound oscillates between soul, jazz and R&B, seems tailor made for a time when afrobeats is expanding its palate and taking on a more global front. Her sound is youthful yet timeless. The themes she chooses to explore in her music are wrapped around the most pedestrian parts of what makes us human as well as our inherent complications.nYou can split Owó’s journey leading up to her current musical standing into four phases, each with their own struggles, joys and lessons. The first would have to be her early love for music. Owó grew up writing poems and listening to everything from gospel to R&B and with a mother who was an accomplished singer herself. Coupled also with two brothers who matched her creative energy and with whom she spent most of her time, her childhood nurtured and sustained this original passion.
“I did enjoy working in finance, and that’s the thing with following your dreams, it doesn't mean anything else you do will be out of place,” she muses. “I feel like I had a good time, it helped me learn discipline and a lot of other things I wouldn’t have picked up if I hadn’t worked there.”
TOMI OWO