Afeefa & the boy

Got this incredible letter about following your dreams despite all odds from Orlando’s Afeefa Ayube:

Hey ya Mark,

I hope my email meets you on a beautiful moment. Im stuck in an airport somewhere in middle American as I type, so you’re automatically better off than I anyway.

I grew up in a family where music, any kind of music was forbidden. I was in my twenties before I discovered who the beatles were. This was certainly not supposed to be my path, but here I am, and at home I feel.

my mother married my father when she was just a wee 15. he was 25. she is a free spirit somewhere hidden inside a women who has lead a pretty rough life. an artist, a believer of magic, and an amazing vocalist. but the life she was dealt pretty much crushed those parts of her.

when I say I grew up without music, I mean instruments, or radio, or movies…but my mother sang to us everyday. her voice is the most etherial thing ive ever heard. she wrote songs for us, my siblings and I.

often times, when I’m on stage, barefoot, with strangers listening to the words I’ve written, I almost can feel the energy of the SO many silenced women of the world. outside of America. somewhere far away. where creativity isn’t even allowed to hatch from the egg. i swear i can almost feel it. because that was very much supposed to be my life.

My father years ago, was a real hippie. or so the people of his past have told us. then, when my sister before me was just 2, she died in his arms. on a bus. my mother watched the last tear drop from her eyes, and didnt have the heart to tell him. so they rode the bus, with the little baby in his arms, all the way to the town doctor (in Guyana). he then had to ride the bus home, with his dead baby in his arms.

not many people know that story. my mother only recently told it to me a few years ago. he, like many many people that suffer tragic unthinkable things, turned to religion to help him heal, or at the least cope. his interpretation of religion, meant at least for many things, to “shelter” his living children from the corruption of the outside world. music being one of them.

sigh.

i too, cannot imagine my life without music now.

A little over a year ago, with all things crashing around me, I started writing songs. And they would not stop coming. I knew nothing of “cool” or “indie” music. I barely knew music on the radio. The day before my birthday I spent a huge amount on cash, and bought myself my first Taylor guitar. I knew that I wanted to stum stum to the lyrics I was writing. I spent that summer teaching myself basic guitar, and braved an open mic about 2 months later.

afeefa & the boy starts there.

Jay, my now lead guitar player came straight towards me after I played 2 songs to an almost silent room. I had prefaced my shaky performance with “i only know 2 chords, i just started playing this thing.” We have been playing together ever since. A few weeks late, folks started booking us for local shows, I won a song writing contest, and “afeefa & the boy” was kind of born.

It wasnt until I wrote “the old man” that I knew we needed more instruments, but i knew, like Jay, it would happen at exactly the moment it was meant to. The very first time I asked our buddy Andrew to play with us live, to “the old man”, a stranger named Glen sat in the audience. Someone had told him to check out this girl that wrote songs.

He approached me after and said if I ever needed a cello player, he would love to be involved. I honestly didn’t even know what a cello was. He visited us the next day at rehearsal, and we have been playing together ever since. Since then, we have played some pretty cool shows on the Orlando scene, and are having the time of our lives making music together. We are exciting to finally be releasing our EP this April (in vynyl none the less:) have for the most part self recorded it, and would love to share it with you.

thank you so much for taking a gander at it, peace & love

afeefa

PS. my dad still has no idea Im a musician :) and I see the guy a few times a week. haha. music is still forbidden in my parents house. - yvynal

Afeefa and the Boy definitely instilled some wow-factor and goosebumps during her intimate and mellow set that was absolutely stunning. - Culture Climax

Afeefa and the Boy definitely instilled some wow-factor and goosebumps during her intimate and mellow set that was absolutely stunning. - Culture Climax

Of all the bands, the one most that the audience seemed most impressed with was Afeefa and The Boy, featuring Andrew Schmitt-Grijalva (percussion), Glen Samuels (piano and cello), Jay Yerkes (lead guitar) and Afeefa Ayube (vocals and rhythm guitar). They were originally a duet formed by Ayube and Yerkes, but after meeting Samuels and Schmitt-Grijalva at Austin’s Coffee and Film, the current line-up was formed. During their set, the audience looked completely captivated, rocking back and forth in a hypnotic daze during each song. If you’re going to listen to their music, make sure you’re not doing anything else, cause the songs will steal all of your attention and make you forget your troubles.

More info:
http://www.facebook.com/Afeefa.and.theboy - The Orlando Independent Music Blog

Of all the bands, the one most that the audience seemed most impressed with was Afeefa and The Boy, featuring Andrew Schmitt-Grijalva (percussion), Glen Samuels (piano and cello), Jay Yerkes (lead guitar) and Afeefa Ayube (vocals and rhythm guitar). They were originally a duet formed by Ayube and Yerkes, but after meeting Samuels and Schmitt-Grijalva at Austin’s Coffee and Film, the current line-up was formed. During their set, the audience looked completely captivated, rocking back and forth in a hypnotic daze during each song. If you’re going to listen to their music, make sure you’re not doing anything else, cause the songs will steal all of your attention and make you forget your troubles.

More info:
http://www.facebook.com/Afeefa.and.theboy - The Orlando Independent Music Blog

“Music was pretty much discouraged in my house as a kid,” said local singer/songwriter Afeefa Ayube of Orlando band Afeefa and the Boy. “It wasn’t even something I considered until last year. I taught myself to play the guitar this past year because I was suddenly writing songs like a maniac, and needed an outlet. I was humming melodies all day long, and wanted an instrument to accompany them.”

There are several artists that Ayube admires. “Nora Jones, she plays beautifully, and her songs move me. Her music is simple and very real. Angus and Julia Stone, a brother and sister duo, I love their writing, their melodies, their band, everything. I’m obsessed with ‘Times Like These’ by the Foo Fighters right now too, the lyrics are brilliant. I sing that to myself when I want to feel good. Natalie Merchant, a lyrical genius.”

“I can’t read music, but when I write a song, it comes out of me in lyric and melody, and then I figure out a simple chord progression. Jay [Yerkes] is responsible for all the really cool instrumentals. I write all the lyrics, and they are inspired by memories, people I love, have loved, miss, cringe at the thought of, whatever. I write when I’m feeling stuff, whatever that may be, sad, happy, anything really. Every song I write has at least one true line, that inspired it, and the song grew out of that memory, often times its a lot more than one line. ‘Favorite Memory’ evolved from the memory of this person I connected with on a pretty real and deep level laying his head on my lap, and it being a peaceful feeling, certainly not my favorite memory, but a really good one.”

Her instrument is the guitar, but it’s only been a short while since she started playing. “I bought myself an expensive Taylor when I decided I wanted to learn the guitar last year. I figured if I spent a lot of money on it, I wouldn’t quite as easily when it got tough. It was beautiful, and I was right, when it got really hard, I kept at it because my inner voice kept yelling ‘don’t you dare put that guitar in the closet. You couldn’t eat for a week because you spent all your money on it!’ Anyway, long ugly story later, it broke in a nasty way, totally not reparable. I was devastated, and then Jay surprised me with a pretty sweet Martin! All is well in my world again.”

“I want people to feel something when they listen to us I suppose, good, even bad, maybe. A memory revisited? That’s what I hear the most, ‘I felt this when you played that song’ and it makes me feel really good, because often times, I felt the same way when writing it. It’s awesome, as humans we have so much in common, and that’s easily forgotten.”

“The Orlando music scene, from what I’ve seen, is pretty incredible. There is a lot of talent in our small city, and loads of cool, nice people that want to connect with like minded folks. I was encouraged to keep writing, keep playing, every time I played an open mic, even if it was one person that said ‘your music is cool’ or got lost for a minute in it while I was playing. Had the response been negative and closed minded, perhaps I would have stopped, who knows. There is a real sense of community here, and although so many different types of artists, [there is] sincere support for each other.”

Afeefa and the Boy just recently played their first real show at Austin’s, and have another scheduled March 20th at Natura. Music fans can keep updated with the local Orlando band and hear their Folk music on their Facebook page.
- examiner.com

Hello Beautiful Thinkers,

For any of you that are in the Central Florida area, today my focus is a recent local show I attended. If you are even remotely aware of modern music, you’ve probably noticed that Indie Folk has recently established itself in mainstream music. Between Mumford & Sons’ Babel winning the 2013 Album of the Year last night at the Grammy’s and the commercial success of artists like Phillip Phillips, Edward Sharp and the Magnetic Zeroes, and Of Monsters and Men, it can’t be denied that Indie Folk music is “in.” So it should be no surprise that this trend has made its way into the local music scene as well. And that’s what I checked out on Saturday, February 2nd.

Walking into Stardust Video and Coffee in Orlando, FL, is like finding yourself in a hipster wet dream. From their tables made out of doors and their strings of Christmas lights and Chinese lanterns to their vegan-friendly menu, Stardust is definitely an interesting experience. (If you don’t find it as mentally exhausting to look at hipsters as I do, then Stardust is worth a visit. But if you’re like me, the sheer mass of people in their early twenties dressing like they don’t own a mirror on purpose, one trip might be more than enough.) As you can probably guess, Beautiful Thinkers, I wasn’t there because I wanted to chat up the groupies. Stardust Coffee and Video is more than just a restaurant and movie rental hub: it also functions as a music venue

1358275973597

The Ghost Choir Art Show (a concert, despite the insinuation) was held at the Dust and featured local bands The Plush Monsters, Afeefa & The Boy, and headliner Roadkill Ghost Choir. The event was held as the official release party for RGC’s new music video to “Bird In My Window.” When I arrived, The Plush Monsters were preparing to take the stage with their indie folk style of music. They kicked the evening off with an energetic bang and set the bar high for the quality of music that evening. They have a 5-track album titled Halloween available for download on their Facebook page.

The band that followed, Afeefa & The Boy, caught my eye with the use of both a toy piano and a cello in their set. A female lead vocalist set this band even further apart from the other two by adding a refreshing mix to the predominately male lineup. They started as a duo (hence the singular “Boy”) but the recent addition of two members resulted in a very cohesive sound. They kept the crowd going and built up excitement for their headliner.

My favorite song of the night was Afeefa & The Boy’s “The Lonely City.” A rough mix of this song, as well as their song “The Old Man”, is available for listen on the group’s Facebook page. They intend on releasing an EP soon and a full interview with Afeefa & The Boy is featured at the end of this entry.

Headliner Roadkill Ghost Choir didn’t disappoint, ending the evening with songs off their EP Quiet Light, available on iTunes for $4.95. Their throwback to traditional folk roots and use of the banjo make them a crowd favorite. The video for “Bird In My Window” is an excellent animated video that captures the beautiful sadness I felt while listening to the song. Click here to check out the video. Among their other accomplishments, this month Roadkill Ghost Choir took the title of the “February 2013 Band of the Month” from The Blue Indian. The band’s next show will be held in Sarasota, FL, on February 9th at The Blue Rooster.

Interview with Afeefa & The Boy:

420082_10101423029274772_1661235571_n

Afeefa Ayube: Vocals and Guitar

Jay Yerkes: Guitar

Andrew Schmitt: Percussion, Toy Piano, and Background Vocals

Glenford Samuels: Cello, Piano, and Background Vocals

The Boy In The Heart Shades (me!): Where are you all from? Are you all native Floridians?

Afeefa: I think we’re kind of from all over the place. I’m originally from South America. I grew up in Toronto and a little bit in New York, and now Florida.

Andrew: I grew up in New Jersey pretty much till I was eighteen then moved down here for school and after I graduated I ended up staying around.

Jay: I actually am from Florida.

Glen: Born in Hartford, CT and lived in Florida for about twenty years.

TBITHS: How did you all form the band?

Glen: Fate formed the band.

Afeefa: It was a lot of serendipitous events. I started writing music about two summers ago. I met Jay at the first open mic that I went to at Austin’s Coffee Shop. He approached me after and wanted to jam. People started booking us as a twosome so we started calling ourselves Afeefa & the Boy. In early July I wrote “The Old Man” and asked Andrew to do percussions for that song.

The next day we played an open mic night and Glen was a stranger at the time but had heard about us from a friend of a friend so he came to check us out. After we played he told us if we ever needed a cello player to call. And I actually had no idea what - Something New Daily

Hello Beautiful Thinkers,

For any of you that are in the Central Florida area, today my focus is a recent local show I attended. If you are even remotely aware of modern music, you’ve probably noticed that Indie Folk has recently established itself in mainstream music. Between Mumford & Sons’ Babel winning the 2013 Album of the Year last night at the Grammy’s and the commercial success of artists like Phillip Phillips, Edward Sharp and the Magnetic Zeroes, and Of Monsters and Men, it can’t be denied that Indie Folk music is “in.” So it should be no surprise that this trend has made its way into the local music scene as well. And that’s what I checked out on Saturday, February 2nd.

Walking into Stardust Video and Coffee in Orlando, FL, is like finding yourself in a hipster wet dream. From their tables made out of doors and their strings of Christmas lights and Chinese lanterns to their vegan-friendly menu, Stardust is definitely an interesting experience. (If you don’t find it as mentally exhausting to look at hipsters as I do, then Stardust is worth a visit. But if you’re like me, the sheer mass of people in their early twenties dressing like they don’t own a mirror on purpose, one trip might be more than enough.) As you can probably guess, Beautiful Thinkers, I wasn’t there because I wanted to chat up the groupies. Stardust Coffee and Video is more than just a restaurant and movie rental hub: it also functions as a music venue

1358275973597

The Ghost Choir Art Show (a concert, despite the insinuation) was held at the Dust and featured local bands The Plush Monsters, Afeefa & The Boy, and headliner Roadkill Ghost Choir. The event was held as the official release party for RGC’s new music video to “Bird In My Window.” When I arrived, The Plush Monsters were preparing to take the stage with their indie folk style of music. They kicked the evening off with an energetic bang and set the bar high for the quality of music that evening. They have a 5-track album titled Halloween available for download on their Facebook page.

The band that followed, Afeefa & The Boy, caught my eye with the use of both a toy piano and a cello in their set. A female lead vocalist set this band even further apart from the other two by adding a refreshing mix to the predominately male lineup. They started as a duo (hence the singular “Boy”) but the recent addition of two members resulted in a very cohesive sound. They kept the crowd going and built up excitement for their headliner.

My favorite song of the night was Afeefa & The Boy’s “The Lonely City.” A rough mix of this song, as well as their song “The Old Man”, is available for listen on the group’s Facebook page. They intend on releasing an EP soon and a full interview with Afeefa & The Boy is featured at the end of this entry.

Headliner Roadkill Ghost Choir didn’t disappoint, ending the evening with songs off their EP Quiet Light, available on iTunes for $4.95. Their throwback to traditional folk roots and use of the banjo make them a crowd favorite. The video for “Bird In My Window” is an excellent animated video that captures the beautiful sadness I felt while listening to the song. Click here to check out the video. Among their other accomplishments, this month Roadkill Ghost Choir took the title of the “February 2013 Band of the Month” from The Blue Indian. The band’s next show will be held in Sarasota, FL, on February 9th at The Blue Rooster.

Interview with Afeefa & The Boy:

420082_10101423029274772_1661235571_n

Afeefa Ayube: Vocals and Guitar

Jay Yerkes: Guitar

Andrew Schmitt: Percussion, Toy Piano, and Background Vocals

Glenford Samuels: Cello, Piano, and Background Vocals

The Boy In The Heart Shades (me!): Where are you all from? Are you all native Floridians?

Afeefa: I think we’re kind of from all over the place. I’m originally from South America. I grew up in Toronto and a little bit in New York, and now Florida.

Andrew: I grew up in New Jersey pretty much till I was eighteen then moved down here for school and after I graduated I ended up staying around.

Jay: I actually am from Florida.

Glen: Born in Hartford, CT and lived in Florida for about twenty years.

TBITHS: How did you all form the band?

Glen: Fate formed the band.

Afeefa: It was a lot of serendipitous events. I started writing music about two summers ago. I met Jay at the first open mic that I went to at Austin’s Coffee Shop. He approached me after and wanted to jam. People started booking us as a twosome so we started calling ourselves Afeefa & the Boy. In early July I wrote “The Old Man” and asked Andrew to do percussions for that song.

The next day we played an open mic night and Glen was a stranger at the time but had heard about us from a friend of a friend so he came to check us out. After we played he told us if we ever needed a cello player to call. And I actually had no idea what - Something New Daily