On May 4, 2010, Chicago-born and Brooklyn-borrowed vocalist ArinMaya will release her self-directed debut EP, titled, The Sound of ArinMaya. The EP comes just two years after ArinMaya packed her love for music, faith, and savings for the jazz scene in Paris where revered musicians and eager audiences alike were captivated by her sound. The Sound of ArinMaya, which realizes in an amalgamation of ArinMaya’s dynamic aesthetic vocal range and stylings, is ArinMaya’s response to the common question: What kind of music do you sing? Drawing connections between blues, soul, gospel, jazz, and electro-beat, ArinMaya offers listeners access to a journey of diverse sonic experiences. ArinMaya’s willingness to extract boldly dissimilar cultural influences and fuse them into her own creations makes The Sound of ArinMaya one of the most exciting bodies of original music yet to be released this year. An alum of Howard and Stanford Universities, and an extensively traveled artist (having spent periods of time in Berlin, Paris, Ghana), ArinMaya’s life seems like a plethora of unique cultural experiences—ones that are responsible for the development of insightful song writing, and unusual instrumentation. ArinMaya’s experimentation with African drumming rhythms is a direct influence of her training in West African dance, which she started at the age of 2. ArinMaya utilizes the drum as both the blood and heartbeat of her music and it moves in sync with her rich, poignant and organic vocal style. The result is a playful collection of music that ranges from earthy and stark percussive elements to the colorful and multilayered ambient sounds of electro-beat. In the up-tempo track, “Find In Me” produced by Daru Jones, ArinMaya’s voice is carried by a deep bass dance rhythm accented by soulful piano trills, which is a far departure from “Remember,” where she turns a lighthearted children’s song “Father Abraham” into a track with thoughtful and emotive vocals over minimalist drum patterns. Though so many vocalists grew up in the church (ArinMaya started singing in her church choir at the age of 5), her gospel sound is more due to her own call to spirit and spirituality than it is about performing specifically in the genre. The weaving of ArinMaya’s strong but gentle a capella vocals on “I Will Sing” is akin to her musical lineage (The first song in the medley, and first sound on the EP, "I Will Sing Hallelujah" By Donnie Harper, was ArinMaya's first solo ever) and encapsulates that pivotal part of her personal journey. Having grown up in a household where her parents listened to everything from Crosby, Stills & Nash to Betty Carter, from Sweet Honey in the Rock to Bobby McFerrin and Stevie Wonder, ArinMaya was not limited to the exposure of any one particular genre of music. One of her biggest influences to this day is the soundtrack to Roger and Hammerstein’s “The Sound of Music,” the iconic musical that inspired the name for her album. Along the same lines as her contemporaries—other dynamic vocalists such as, Liz Wright, Amel Larrieux, Erykah Badu and Asa—call it soul music or not, The Sound of ArinMaya is an exciting and successful endeavor that encapsulates everything from different world music to jazz. As ArinMaya herself has said “I like to play with rhythms—start out swinging a standard, then halfway through switch to bossa nova, and maybe finish with roots.” ArinMaya’s versatility is genuine and experimental as much as it is experiential. The Sound of ArinMaya is only ArinMaya’s induction and grand debut into the world of musical greats.