Alysha Brilla

Alysha Brilla is a Canadian musician, songwriter, and music producer. Brilla's music career includes performances at WOMAD, Woodford Folk Festival and Montreal Jazz Festival. Her music focuses on themes of connection and healing. Born in Mississauga, Ontario and raised in Brampton, Ontario, she started singing in her early teens in local bands and at festivals. In 2010, she signed a major record deal at Lava Records/Universal Republic.[1] Brilla has since released all of her music independently on her own music label, Sunny Jam Records. Brilla has received three Juno Award nominations for her self-produced albums.

Alysha Brilla
Brilla in 2022
Background information
Born (1988-11-03) November 3, 1988
Mississauga, Ontario, Canada
OriginKitchener, Ontario, Canada
Genres
Occupation(s)
  • Singer
  • songwriter
  • record producer
Instrument(s)
  • Guitar
  • piano
  • drums
LabelsSunny Jam
Websitealyshabrilla.com

Early life

Brilla was born in Mississauga, Ontario to a European-Canadian mother and an Indo-Tanzanian father of Khoja descent. Growing up in a mixed-race, mixed-religious household fostered dialectical discussions around race, religion, value systems and ideals. Brilla's father played guitar while growing up in Tanzania and her mother was an avid storyteller. Brilla experienced bullying in middle school and she cites music and nature as her coping mechanism.

She dropped out of school and on her 14th birthday, Brilla was given her father's acoustic guitar and she began teaching herself to play. After returning to and eventually graduating high school, she moved to Toronto. During this time, she was recording and producing her own songs and released an eleven-song EP called Got Soul. Her friend Brad Marshall introduced her to Jacksoul keyboardist and producer Ron Lopata and the two began to demo some of Brilla's songs with a band.

She composed music for Fawzia Mirza's 2023 film The Queen of My Dreams.

Awards and honours
  • 2017 JUNO Award Nomination for "Rooted", Adult Contemporary Album of the Year
  • 2016 Winner Midem Artist Accelerator, represented Canada in Cannes, France[2]
  • 2015 International Songwriting Contest winner in Lyric Category "Immigrant"
  • 2015 JUNO Award Nomination for "Womyn", Adult Contemporary Album of the Year
  • 2014 U.K. Songwriting Contest winner in Pop and Singer/Songwriter categories for "Never Gonna Get Me Back" [3]
  • 2014 Oktoberfest Woman of The Year winner.
  • 2014 JUNO Award Nomination for "In My Head", Adult Contemporary Album of the Year [4]

Studio albums
Year Album
2012 Brilla
2013 In My Head
2014 Womyn
2016 Human
2017 Rooted
2022 Circle

References
  1. "Cherry Lane Music Publishing Company, Inc. - New Signings for LAVA and Cherry Lane". Cherrylane.com. 2010-06-14. Archived from the original on 27 July 2010. Retrieved 2010-06-29.
  2. "Midem Artist Accelerator finalists revealed". Musicweek.com. Retrieved 9 June 2021.
  3. "2014 Results". Songwritingcontest.co.uk. Archived from the original on 29 September 2017. Retrieved 9 June 2021.
  4. "2014 Juno Nominees & Winners". Archived from the original on 2015-01-27.
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