An intimate gathering in Brooklyn on a frigid November night presented an escape into singer-songwriter Mary Akpa's sonic world of her latest album, Nnoo — a multi-platform experience exploring the themes of Black and immigrant identity, self-love, and social justice.

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Meaning "welcome" in Igbo, Akpa's native language, the singer's chosen family revelled in the opportunity to hear her first project in five years, being earnestly birthed against the backdrop of creative self-doubt and fear. The low-lit space, glazed with hues of purple and gold, felt safe and embalming as Akpa displayed items that represented her journey for attendees to further connect with the album.

Born in Onitsha, Nigeria, Akpa came to the US as a toddler and was raised by a single mother, growing up in between Los Angeles and San Diego. Like many first-generation Africans, she found herself navigating life through a dualistic lens — balancing the Black American experience with the Nigerian experience. Far away from home, she still felt pulled to birthplace like a magnet and would especially reconnect through the music her mother would play around the house — from highlife and juju to contemporary Christian and gospel genres.

"People always say, 'You don't really choose music. It chooses you.' And I think that's true", she says. "Even when I talk to my mom, she would emphasise that I was always singing. It's part of the way I've always expressed myself naturally. And I'm in the place in my life where I want to know why — I don't know why. But I just want to know for my own curiosity — what is it about this thing that has been such a force for me?"

Nnoo is a portal into Akpa exploration of her symbiotic relationship with her confidence and knowledge of self. As her first studio recording in five years, she offers a soundscape of genres rooted in her first love — jazz. "I'm an artist that loves sound and texture," she adds. "I feel my love for guitar is directly connected to that imprint of highlife and juju music, as it's the first thing I hear when making music — the guitar line."

The process of producing the album and its visuals revealed to the singer that it's worth pushing through the imposter syndrome when creating. An unexpected change of plans led her to wear all the hats when shooting the music video for "A Hurum Gi N'anya" in her family's village. "I'm experiencing myself as a creative being now rather than just an artist, musician, or songwriter. I want to leave myself that open because that's who I really am", she says.

As AMAKA sits down with Akpa, we learn more about her musical journey as an artist, the major themes found in the album, her initiative Naija Girl Tribe, and more.  

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Tell me about the creative process and the initial building blocks of the album.

I'm an artist that's very much about the music. As a songwriter, the words flow after I've embodied the music. The songs on this record came out similarly and in more of an improvisational style in the house that we were recording in Lagos, Nigeria, in 2018. I gathered a bass player, a drummer and three guitar players just so I could get all of these layered guitar melodies that I had in my mind out of my head. We were locked in the house for about two and a half weeks, and I'll never forget the energy that was in that space. My mom even says it to this day — we were just in a zone. I left with ideas, some as long as 15 or 17 minutes, and I had to decide which parts I wanted to keep and make into songs.

But the process from when I returned to the States in 2018 to the end of 2019, I was prepared to get back into it again, but I was completely overwhelmed and was met with my own self-doubt and self-criticism harder than ever in my life. I couldn't even listen to the songs and remember questioning my lyrics. I was trying to rewrite things instead of accepting the way that I say what I have to say. My friend (and songwriter) Spree Wilson, fortunately, helped me engineer and got me on a schedule so we could go through the stems. Despite my continued critiques, he acknowledged that I was too in my head and stuck and pushed me to realise that I'm a great songwriter who's direct and doesn't need to soften the blow of what I'm trying to say. I could not have finished it if it wasn't for Spree.

Mixing the album after I released "Black Body" as the first single in 2020 was another exercise in acceptance. My friend Carey, who came to Nigeria to record with me, called me after I released it and offered his extra studio time for us to put the finishing touches and piece everything together. I had five days, so I didn't have time to overthink. It was a challenge to listen back and not be able to rewrite and rerecord, but I was also in a space of feeling so grateful that someone would create that much space and time for me.

What's the inspiration behind naming this project Nnoo, meaning "welcome" in the Igbo language?

I named the album Nnoo is because of a lot of what I've been talking about. I didn't know when I started that it was going to take this long and the journey that it would take. But when I reached the end with the album being done, I felt like I came home to myself in the process, owning my voice and really being able to see both my strengths and my weaknesses while acknowledging them both so that I'm empowered to do something with them. I tried so many other titles, but there was nothing else that fit. And when I was in Nigeria, I kept hearing 'nnoo' — it's a greeting that can mean so many things, like you've arrived. It just felt so resonant of the feeling of the journey that I had. There's such weight and power in having another language and reference point rather than trying to translate it into a way where more people will understand it. Nnoo embodies that journey of coming home to myself and who I really am.

What are some anecdotes and themes listeners should keep in mind while listening?

Really learning to truly see myself is what "A Hurum Gi N'anya" is about. It was originally supposed to be about true love, but it reminded me that I wasn't really loving myself. How can I really love someone else if I don't love myself? If I don't acknowledge and accept who I really am, then I'm not loving myself. If I don't acknowledge that the way that I say, "I'm tired of you pulling the race card" in "Black Body" is what I really want to say, I'm not loving myself. If I feel like I have to always constantly edit and change my words so that I can sound like anything that's not me — that's not loving myself. And so this process was me seeing like, if you don't see yourself, you can't love yourself. And if you don't see yourself and own that, you're not loving anyone else from a real place, right? And what matters to me in life is what is real — and I had to start with me.

"Black Body" is a special song to me because it's more than just a song. I wrote those lyrics years ago, and the context for that is, I feel like there's been an attack on the Black family and Black love, and Black community and joy for such a long time. I wanted to just say something about what it's like to live in a Black body because there's [sic] all of these constructs. The line where I say, "We're the ocean, the wave, the tide, we'd dig up our own graves," there's something so powerful about the ocean, there's all of this on top of us, but still we can come above that. That ability [to survive] from black people is absolutely divine — it just outshines those constructs so brightly. We are so powerful; we have a choice — if we can just see the ways that these constructs are affecting us, then they won't have power over us. It's the first song I released on the project and the song that brought me back into the album.

"I Promise" is intentionally the last song on the album. It's my promise to always stand for, see, and fight for my people, for what I believe in and for what is right. Part of my practice as a vocalist is to share horn solos, and one of my best friends was originally going to record sax on it. There's the opening line, "Carrying our torch, it seems to never end. We're back to the beginning." It feels like this fight for racial justice is exhausting — it just feels like it never ends. But the bigger message behind that is who's carrying the torch? It's usually a Black woman, and I feel like that doesn't get said enough. So the deeper promise for me is actually to see, stand and fight for the torch-bearers that people don't acknowledge. And so, at that point, I knew I had to feature a Black woman with a badass flute solo, expressing that feeling through her instrument. And that was the only direction I gave Melanie Charles. We were both talking about how tired we were. Her project is also about how Black women usually don't get the due credit as musicians as [male] jazz musicians. In her solo, you feel that, and it's intense but in a good way. We are so present, yet y'all still act like you don't see us. That's a choice because we are very visible.

You're an all-around creative that's about empowering young Nigerian girls and helping them explore diverse career paths through your organisation, Naija Girl Tribe. Why is such an initiative needed now?

I founded Naija Girl Tribe in 2016 with my friend and fellow artist Ayo Awosika, and we provide personal development, mentoring, and professional guidance for Nigerian girls. It evolved after meeting and speaking with high school-aged girls when my mother took me to visit her high school.

After answering their questions around pursuing music, I was asked what my source of support was on my journey. I said that there have been women in my life, from women who are a little younger than me to aunties who are older that have become mentors — that's where I received most of my guidance in my life. Having a mentor that can speak into you and guide you in that way is such an important thing to have. I further explained what a mentor-mentee relationship looks like and asked the girls if they would be interested in exploring what that could even look like for themselves — and they all raised their hands. So I just kept going back for a few more days in a row, and it was such an incredible experience — because most of the girls just don't have anyone else to really talk to.

Ayo and I returned a few months later and developed workshops around topics that the girls needed support on, but we switched to virtual programming once the pandemic happened. Our long-term goal is to get back to our personal workshops in Nigeria, periodically, and then to host panels featuring women from different walks of life for them to get to know them on a deeper level. We also want the girls to be empowered to begin forming their own communities, so they can further understand the importance of networking and the exciting things that can come from fostering that.

Any last words? What has the response to the album been like so far?

I just want to just give thanks — for the journey of this project and for every single person that was involved in making it happen. Though it felt really lonely, there were definitely moments where I needed a push over the hill, that little boost. And I'm so grateful that there was always someone there to give me that push.

The response has been surprising, honestly. I just feel humbled and honoured that people are moved by it. The people that are reaching out are reaching out in a really deep way. They're small glimpses that maybe this album is creating that moment for people that I've always wanted, and for it to actually happen — just what a special thing, to be able to make people feel something. I mean, especially Black people like to have a Black person say, 'In a time where we could watch ourselves die on camera, I needed to hear that song', that's a Grammy to me. Because I know what I feel like when a song speaks to me or gives me something that I need — and it's such a priceless thing.

This interview has been edited and condensed for length and clarity.