New Voices, New Visions: AKENYA

Saturday, June 10, 2023 @ 8:00pm

South Orange Performing Arts Center (SOPAC)
One Sopac Way, South Orange, NJ 07079

As the centerpiece of our first annual LGBTQ+ Pride weekend festival at SOPAC, we welcome “far-ranging sonic nomad” (Chicago Tribune), singer-songwriter AKENYA to SOPAC for her NJ and SOPAC debuts. In her decade-plus career, AKENYA has emerged as a songwriter and singer deftly moving among Jazz, Hip-Hop, and R&B influences, including guest appearances with Chance the Rapper, Saba, Nubya Garcia, and many more. AKENYA anchors our first ever LGBTQ+ Pride weekend of events at SOPAC, which includes a Friday, June 9 comedy show (acts forthcoming!) and a Sunday, June 11 TONY Awards viewing party in the mainstage theatre!

Following AKENYA’s performance, there will be a VIP Pride After Party in the SOPAC Loft.  Tickets are $25 and get you exclusive access to a VIP post-concert dance party with the AKENYA and other VIP guests. Dance the night away to a live DJ and enjoy hosted snacks and a cash bar! One drink included in the after party tickets. 

AKENYA’s hit single “Decay”

“Decay” has been streamed hundreds of thousands of times.  A gorgeous aching song, she reflects on her battles with her body as someone with Lyme disease.

AKENYA is a multi-genre vocalist, pianist, composer, and arranger. Her music is an eclectic synthesis of Jazz, Hip-Hop, Soul, Pop, Classical, and World music. A proud Chicago native, AKENYA has performed and recorded with some of the city’s leading artists such as Smino, Saba, and Chance the Rapper. In 2017, AKENYA contributed vocals to Chicago legend Mavis Staples’s Grammy nominated album If All I Was Was Black. AKENYA is experimental Jazz super group Resavoir’s only vocalist and its primary keyboardist; the band was dubbed 2019’s “Best Jazz Band” by the Chicago Reader. Additionally, the second movement of AKENYA’s string composition “Fear the Lamb,” a tribute to the life of Emmet Till, was featured on Apple Music’s “Classical Music You Must Hear” playlist in May 2022. AKENYA is currently working on her highly anticipated, debut LP, Moon in the 4th.