High praise for Tullamore singer's new single
A talented young Nigerian singer-songwriter who has made her home in Tullamore has won huge critical acclaim for her new single 'Don’t Let Go'.
The new single from the 24-year old will also feature on an EP 'Being' which will be released next month via the Berlin-based record label, Welcome to the New World.
A self-confessed “music fanatic” Tolu Makay has experienced more in her short life than many young women of her age, and this has given her songwriting great emotional depth.
Although she was born in Nigeria, she ended up coming to Ireland with her mother, Yemisi, who wanted to give Tolu and her two siblings better opportunities than they would have had in their home country.
They eventually settled in Tullamore and Tolu attended Scoil Mhuire and Tullamore College before pursuing a degree in Psychology and Philosophy at NUIG.
Having taken part in Midlands Got Talent in Clara, and winning the top prize, Tolu Makay achieved her big breakthrough in music when she won one of the biggest gospel singing competitions in Ireland, 'Treasure Unravelled' and was given a one-year music management deal, vocal mentoring and the opportunity to record one of her own songs.
She released three singles in eighteen months and is now hoping to take her music career one step further with the release of “Don’t Let Go” and her first EP.
The inspiration for her latest single came about last year, about a week before her live performance at Dublin music venue, Whelans. “While juggling the night shift in my job and trying to rehearse for the show, I felt like giving up music, giving up on myself,” she says, adding that she decided to quit her job and explore her own path.
“This song really gave me the motivation to keep going, and I just kept singing it to myself” she admits. Describing her upcoming EP as a “deeply personal account” of her journey through struggles with her mental health and finding herself, she says she is looking forward to the day when she can make her living writing and singing her own songs.
Tolu now lives in Dublin, and was described by host John Creedon on his Radio One evening music show last week as “the fantastically talented Tolu Makay.”