It could take a singer years to search out their voice—each actually and figuratively. “After I began, I did not have the voice I’ve now,” singer/songwriter Daya tells GRAMMY.com over the cellphone. “It was actually breathy and falsetto-y and did not actually have a tone to it.” Now, at 22, she’s a full-fledged pop singer with no trace of greenness or tentativeness.
What in regards to the latter type of the phrase? Throughout a pandemic yr, the artist born Grace Tandon realized she did not have to please anyone however herself along with her work. “I simply needed to take a step again and give attention to writing songs that felt actually genuine and trustworthy to me,” Daya states. “That is been so essential to my improvement as a songwriter—placing all these expectations apart.”
This intertwining of vocal and inventive improvement has resulted in The Distinction, which was launched in Could. Whereas “First Time,” “Dangerous Woman,” “Tokyo Drifting,” “The Distinction” and “Montana” comprise Daya’s first physique of labor since her debut album 5 years in the past, there is not a touch of rust therein. Somewhat, the discharge represents her imaginative and prescient in full bloom.
And whereas she’s stepping out as a singer/songwriter once more, there’s one other dimension of Daya’s profession to contemplate—her work for different artists, together with the world-dominating Chainsmokers, with whom she recorded “Do not Let Me Down”—and received a GRAMMY for Finest Dance Recording in 2017.
GRAMMY.com caught up with Daya to debate her earliest days as a singer/songwriter, how she got here to work with the Chainsmokers and the way she skilled a artistic development spurt on The Distinction.
