Winnie Ama’s music on White Label is an infectious blend of soulful pop, dance, and R&B. Her creative journey began with a chance encounter taking singing lessons, and before finding her own voice and unique style (which refuses to be confined by one genre), she was writing for other artists.

Winnie Ama is now gearing up to release her first full-length project, a collection of soulful, disco-infused dance tracks. Get to know more about this rising star in our exclusive interview below.

Tell us about your artist name and how you got it. 

My artist name is Winnie Ama. Winnie is the shortened version of my first name Winifried, and then A. M. A. are the initials from my middle names and last name. I like my name. Winnie means “friend of peace.” Ama is a girl’s name from Ghana, so I’m happy that I get to use all the parts of my name in my music artist name because I put different aspects of myself into my music. 

Where do you call home? 

I call Belfast, London, and Ghana all home. I was born and raised in Belfast. My family came from Ghana and I was the first to be born in the UK. I spend my time between Belfast and London. I love how busy London is and I love that there’s always someone up for doing whatever I feel like doing, whether it’s dancing all night, mountain biking in the forest, or seeing some live music from an unknown band.

I am so proud to be from Belfast because it’s a place with the kindest people and a lot of creativity; it’s really underrated. Belfast has been through a lot. I feel like there is an artistic renaissance happening there at the moment and I’m really pleased to be making music at the same time as so many inspirational creatives. Although I’ve only been to Ghana once, I never forget my origins, I speak to my family there regularly and there is a soulful element of my music which I believe comes from my roots in Ghana. 

How do you describe your musical style? 

It’s soulful pop and dance music. My solo projects are all pop with inspiration from RnB, soul, and old jazz artists like Billie Holiday and Ella Fitzgerald. I like writing story-based songs. I also enjoy writing songs to myself from other people’s perspectives. I really enjoy collaborating with producers from different genres. I’m really glad that we’re moving away from the idea that artists need to stay in one genre forever because sometimes it means you’re boiling artists down to just one layer of their personality, also I don’t think anyone listens to just one single genre and nothing else. That’s my favorite thing about collaborating, stretching my creativity into areas I never could have imagined. 

What first inspired you to get into music?  

I got into music as a hobby in my 20s. I broke up with a toxic ex who was sucking all my time, so when I became single and got all my time back, my friends and I used to all do classes together after work. We did kickboxing and hula-hooping, and then they all wanted to do swimming as our next set of lessons, but it was winter and I didn’t want to get my hair wet so I decided to take singing lessons instead. [laughs]

I shared little video and audio snippets with my friends whenever I learned a new thing from my singing class, then I started writing short songs about my friends and family and putting them on Facebook. An old friend called Francis Groove saw one of the songs that I wrote and asked me to collaborate on a song, so I wrote a track called “Dance” for him and started writing for other artists from that moment.

I was incredibly excited because I had been writing over YouTube beats, so it was a whole new experience to write on original music and I love it. I started singing instead of giving my songs to other artists when one of the other artists I was writing for said that what I wrote was complicated and she didn’t wanna sing it, so I said I’d sing it myself and that’s how I became an artist. 

Is there an artist or person who has inspired you most? 

Ella Fitzgerald. She was entirely self-made and her talent pulled her out of poverty and against the odds stacked against her. As a black female artist in America in 1936, she experienced the worst racism and sexism throughout her life, but her joy and passion and love for singing with her perfect tone and pitch and live performances were flawless despite all of the stupidity she encountered every day.

She inspires me to my core. She’s the gold standard of singing. She was humble, she always thought of other people, she was patient, she broke down barriers in the music industry which paved the way for every other black female who came after her. 

What’s your favorite piece of music production gear or software? 

I make everything in Logic X. I love it and it’s the perfect name for it – it’s so logical to use! I don’t play any instruments but do some music production and record a lot of my own vocals and BVs (background vocals ). I love the freedom of being able to create ideas and experiment with all the different effects and moments in a track. 

What’s your favorite part of the music production process? 

I love the collaboration element. I think the combination of creative minds always produced something that I never could have imagined on my own. I always work with a team when I make music – a producer and sometimes other songwriters. Sometimes we build the song from scratch, other times I’ll write a whole song with some simple chords then I’ll bring it to my producer. He’ll elevate it by a million levels and we’ll finish it together.

Any future projects coming we should know about?

I just dropped an upbeat pop track called “Tangled,” and in a totally different vibe, I dropped a collaborative track with Martin Ikin called “Control It.” It’s a dirty underground tech house track. I cannot wait to share my next project. It’s going to be my first full body of work and it’s soulful, disco-pop, and dancey. It will be mostly similar to my track “Get on You” in terms of style – which you can find on my BPM Artist profile!

Check out Winnie Ama‘s music on BPM Supreme’s White Label and read more interviews here.

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