Introducing Yemi 

Yemi Bolatiwa, a British-born professional singer, songwriter, session artist was born to a Nigerian / Zimbabwean family in London. She has chosen to live in Manchester with the aim of broadening her horizon and exploring a bigger city in the North of England having lived in and around London before now. In addition to her musical career, she currently works as a Community Engagement officer at the Young People's Centre for Creative Arts in Manchester Yemi's musical language and styles aim to convey a sense of positivity and self-confidence in people. 

"Over the last few years, I have started to mature and started to find out what my music is about. I love to talk about empowerment, of love, self confidence, of feeling good and sort of confiding in yourself. So my narratives are for those who want to find positively conscious souls from music could come to me. There’s a lot of people they can go to, but…" 

Being an African and collaborating with other artists, Yemi speaks: 

"The difficulty is there: language barrier because I don’t speak either of my parents’ languages. I would like to collaborate with African bands definitely. But I think there might be a disconnect. That people might disconnect that I don’t speak their language, but I can make my own style or version of it and bring the two genres together. Another issue is that there are not too many bands that play that music. You have to really seek them out." 

The Manchester Experience 

"I’m just someone who took interest in music. I actually came here to study marketing/ business and I did that and I worked in that profession for a while. Then I decided I didn’t like the profession, so I went back I studied Anthropology, Social Anthropology, social studies. This is here in Manchester. I went to Manchester University for my undergraduate studies and University of Manchester for my masters. Nothing to do with music. During my Masters I met people in the city who are interested in the creatives and I guess that sort of wooed me back to my love for music. So I started doing open mics, gigs, jam nights, various kinds of organic local grass root events. It just slowly snowballed me into getting better and better, getting to know people, doing festivals and getting paid to do recording work for people. Over the last four years I got to become like a freelance professional musician and making a career out of it, making an income." 

Yemi's Activities in Manchester 

"As a singer you work with many people and you collaborate, you feature. I work for myself. I also have my own band, work for a few orchestras, cover bands and some agencies as well. There’s a lot of different avenues if you’re a singer, and what you can be doing. I get to do duos and trios, big band stuff with eight or more people. It really does depends on what the clients want, and what events and what time of the year. So, yeah, I keep it really really varied in terms of what I do. Soul music, popular is at the forefront of everything I do. I have two main bands. My band is my name, so, as an artist, I have a live music band, and they play my music for me. If I’m performing for weddings I don’t have like a band, I have different agencies I work with doing weddings. I have my own agencies which is where we do events, corporate functions etc."