Born in Nigeria but raised in the Irish midlands, soul and R&B artist Tolulope Makanjuola, aka Tolü Makay, started singing at her local Pentecostal church at the age of 8. Inspired by the likes of Erykah Badu, Nina Simone, and Amy Winehouse, she kept performing and developing her own personal style throughout her teenage years, and even won a national gospel singing competition before dropping her official debut single in 2017 with “Guide Me All the Way.” Follow-up single “Goodbye” came out in 2018 and was a significant win for the artist, racking up over half a million streams across different platforms. In 2019, “The Greatest Gift,” a collaboration with Berlin-based Irish singer-songwriter Delush, led to a recording contract with his label Welcome to the New World. “Let Me In,” Makanjuola’s first offering for the label, arrived in 2020 and ended up becoming a smash hit, receiving heavy airplay on national radio. Preceded by the singles “Don’t Let Go” and “You Are Enough,” her debut album Being saw the light in October of that year and was followed by the lush orchestrations of “N17” (2021), which debuted at Number 35 on the Irish charts.
