Adia Victoria | |
|---|---|
.jpg) Adia Victoria performing at Austin City Limits Music Festival in 2015 | |
| Background information | |
| Born | July 22, 1986 Spartanburg, South Carolina, US |
| Origin | Nashville, Tennessee, US |
| Genres | |
| Years active | 2013 - present |
| Labels | Warner Music Group |
| Website | adiavictoria |
Adia Victoria (born July 22, 1986) is an American singer and songwriter. In addition to playing and writing music, she also writes poetry.[1] She is currently based in Nashville.[2]
Victoria has described her music as "gothic blues".[3] It incorporates elements of rock, blues, punk rock and country music.[4] Critics and journalists have classified her style as blues,[5][6][7][8][9][10] folk,[3][5][6][11] Southern Gothic,[4][10][12] indie rock,[5][7] blues rock,[9] gothic country,[3] gothic folk,[13] swamp blues,[5] garage punk,[5] punk blues[14] and soul music.[11] Although Victoria is sometimes associated with Americana music, she has distanced herself from the genre, saying, "I’m not an Americana artist. I have no interest in being appropriated by that genre."[8] However, her position seems to have softened as, in 2022, she performed at a nominations event hosted by the Americana Music Association and was nominated for their Emerging Artist of the Year award at their 21st awards ceremony.[15]
Adia Victoria was born in Spartanburg, South Carolina and is one of six siblings.[3] Her father is Trinidadian.[16] She was raised as a Seventh-day Adventist and she attended church schools until in the 6th grade, her mother enrolled her in public school.[3] Shortly after, her parents divorced and Victoria began to write poetry and short stories as a means of coping.[3] Being moved from the world of Seventh-day Adventists to a public school was difficult for Victoria, who didn't feel she fit in.[17] Victoria and her siblings often spent time with her maternal grandparents who lived near Campobello.[16] She attended Landrum Junior High School in Campobello.[18] Her family also left the Adventist church before Victoria attended high school, which allowed her to explore music she hadn't been exposed to before, like Kurt Cobain, Miles Davis and Fiona Apple.[16]
After high school, she went to New York for a time, in an attempt to "strike it big in a new city."[19] In 2007, she left New York for Atlanta.[19] On her 21st birthday, a friend gave her a guitar and she began to work with blues music.[3] Victoria moved to Nashville in 2010.[20] She chose Nashville as a place where she could live anonymously.[21] In Nashville, she earned her GED and then took French in college.[16] She began to perform around Nashville.[21] In 2016, she performed at South by Southwest.[22]
Her personal "look" was noticed by Vogue for its "Afropunk" roots.[23] However, Victoria states that she doesn't like to be "fetishized" for her looks, saying, "People think that because you are attractive, you owe the world something, to let them consume you."[1]
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Victoria began her career with a backing band consisting of Ruby Rogers, Tiffany Minton, and Mason Hickman.[20] Later, she began working with a different group, and they debuted together in January 2016.[24]
Victoria's first single release was "Stuck In the South", which was described on All Things Considered as a "very swampy mysterious kind of slow-burning song."[25] Rolling Stone describes her as "PJ Harvey covering Loretta Lynn at a haunted debutante ball."[26] Her live performances are described by Wondering Sound as angry and "furious and feral."[16] American Songwriter calls her stage presence "commanding."[27]
Victoria's full-length debut, Beyond the Bloodhounds, was produced by Roger Moutenot,[3][28] The name of the album is a reference to Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl by Harriet Jacobs.[28] The predominant theme of her first album is dealing with life in her twenties.[19] Moutenot has previously collaborated with Yo La Tengo and also produced her first single.[29] Canvasback is her current record label.[24] Her 2019 album "Silences" was co-produced by Aaron Dessner from The National.[30] 2020 Victoria released the song "South Gotta Change" executive produced by T Bone Burnett.[31]
In August 2021, Victoria released Magnolia Blues as the lead single from her upcoming third studio album A Southern Gothic. Jon Freeman of Rolling Stone described the song as "an eerie, acoustic-guitar-driven tune that expands to thick bass and a ghostly orchestra of strings and banjo." A Southern Gothic was released on September 17, 2021.[32]
