Artist

Umaisha

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Umaisha is a singer-songwriter born and raised in Maldives and now based in Chicago. Her music transcends genre and lives in the world between these two places, drawing influence from the melodies and rhythms of her island heritage and folk and soft rock inspiration from artists such as Nick Drake and Aimee Mann.

She first worked in accounting, but surviving the Indian Ocean tsunami sharpened her sense of purpose and need for creativity. A few years later, she moved to Chicago, eventually finding community at the Old Town School of Folk Music. There, the acclaimed singer-songwriter Steve Dawson became her mentor and later produced her debut album, Find Me.

Umaisha writes in English and her native language, Dhivehi. Making music in both languages keeps her close to her roots and to the life she’s built between her two homes. With her third single, “Dhannahen,” she is the first U.S.-based artist to release a song in Dhivehi.

She is not trying to fit a fixed story about herself or where she’s from; rather, she tries to write songs that are meaningful to her.

As she sings on her debut album, “please come and find me, but please don’t define me.”

Monthly Listeners

1,610