Aura Interview - Music to Make You Smile
By Tania Chakraborti
“There is no doubt in my mind that growing up [in Brooklyn] impacted my musical journey. It forced me to experience so many of the beautiful and terrible things this world has to offer.”
Think of every lovely memory you might ever have about being in love or dancing the night away at your school dance, or lying on the grass in the sun reading your favourite book. Aura’s latest track ‘Spring’ conjures up all those feelings into one perfectly crafted, nostalgic 3-minute track.
Aura has spent her time indoors the last few weeks surprisingly well, from learning to post Tik Tok videos (we still haven’t mastered that yet) to collaborating with others, including her ‘partner in music’ Brendan Keenan, and of course, releasing Spring.
Spring is a track about “the simple pleasures that come along with this change of season and she chooses to personify the season and speak to it directly, showing her gratitude and endless appreciation for it. Although, it feels quite bittersweet during this time, she hopes that "Spring" can make you smile." And smile we do. We thought we’d chat more to the up-and-coming soul-infused singer and lyricist.
Like any artist, Aura started her journey in her own unique way, writing poetry at just nine years old- of course that naturally brought her to music. She says one of “my fondest memories as a kid was my mom blasting The Velvet Rope by Janet Jackson and dancing in the living room of our attic apartment.” She began rapping in high school and before too long she was in her room, sitting for hours thinking about her stage name. She says she wanted it “to embody the goal of my music, but I also wanted it to be easy to remember….I came up with Aura. It is actually an acronym and stands for Always Understand and Revive Affinity.”
“One of my fondest memories as a kid was my mom blasting The Velvet Rope by Janet Jackson and dancing in the living room of our attic apartment.”
Aura’s musical style reminds us of Corinne-Bailey Rae or Lauryn Hill, mixed with all the right tones of jazz, hip-hop and R&B soul, so it’s no surprise that when asking about her influences, Aura says hers “come from (like most 90s babies) old school Hip Hop and R&B” with some of her favourite current artists being Col3trane, Ari Lennox, Smino and Chika.
And what all of those artists have in common is great music. We ask what made the perfect formula for a track, in Aura’s eyes: “to me, if you have a story, poem, or just an experience to share, I want to hear about it. If it's an instrumental though, I'm heavily drawn to the percussive elements and pretty much anything involving a saxophone.”
The music industry is a complex place and not always as rosy as the finished product that we hear on Spotify. When talking about one thing Aura hates being told or asked within the song-writing process, she says she’d rather not “be asked to collab when there is not even a seedling of an idea. Like, if you want, ask me to join in on a jam sesh and then maybe naturally we will decide to collab with one another. But, coming at me from left field with nothing to offer is a big no. Don't get me wrong I've definitely done this before, but overtime I realized that this isn't at all a fruitful approach.”
We’re a London-based magazine, so naturally we’re interested in whether writing her music in far-away Brooklyn has impacted Aura’s sound in any way. On this point she answers confidently: “there is no doubt in my mind that growing up there impacted my musical journey. It forced me to experience so many of the beautiful and terrible things this world has to offer. All of these experiences became lyrics for me. And what is even more lovely is that since there are so many people here, at least one other person was always bound to relate in some way.”
Listen to Aura on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/track/7p43WJjeHg3CyAMNJnzwyP
Follow Aura on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/_auramusic/
Run That Again on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/runthatagainldn/