Sandra St. Victor - True North

Oya’s Daughter – Available Today

 

Sometimes we need to step away to digest life and allow the space necessary to continue our growth and development. Sandra St. Victor recognized when the time came and from a rented cabin in Holland’s woods created an album that reflects on the journey she’s been on for years, but took two years to make, Oya’s Daughter. In Yoruba, Oya is the orisha of the storms or winds of change, and as St. Victor escaped the city, she was able to tap into emotions that city life help captive in her soul. The time in that cabin allowed her to open up, hear what she felt and relay it to melody. The former lead singer of The Family Stand has shared microphones and stages with many of the greats, but it’s taken time for her to unpack the observations she’s collected through the years and to be able to pour them in her music. Her experiences have taken her around the world, but taking this time to focus on music was extremely exciting. She’s with a label (Shanachie Entertainment) that loves music and is supportive of her vision of sharing who she is in this moment as an artist, woman and mother.

Those words matched with Mark De-Clive Lowe’s production and created a deeply personal album led by singles “I Prefer” and “Presence”. The spirit of Oya is alive as she travels “true north”, just making music and being honest with her art, not trying to stay ahead of the curve, just being true to herself and her influences. It’s the way Curtis Mayfield made music. And Chaka Khan, Prince, Smokey Robinson and any number of artists she’s sang with and learned from. The respect Sandra St. Victor garners industry wide is not lost on her, but it hasn’t allowed her to rest on the accolades either, as she continues to challenge herself into becoming the artist she set out to be.

Part of that challenge has been confronting part of her past. She grew up with a wonderful adoptive family, but was unable to fully connect with who she was until she met her birth mother’s best friend and all of the pieces started to fit. Her mom had passed, but she learned that she was a piano teacher and singer, played the organ for her church and most important, she passed the gift of music to her daughter. In that cabin, she reconciled all of these emotions and that collection of life experiences to produce the album she needed to make. As she sings on the album’s first single, “It’s finally coming around.”

And now the time is here, today marks the release of Oya’s Daughter and she’s celebrating with an album release party at Joe’s Pub in New York City. This is the part of the process she loves, performing. The importance of bonding with those who’ve supported you is immeasurable and for that reason, she’s working to close the digital divide and improve her social networking skills. She understands that interaction is not only needed to help her music spread beyond the usual markets, but it’s also therapeutic, because it provides an avenue for people to listen to you and for her to listen to them, which spurs the winds of change.

Connect with Sandra St. Victor on Facebook (facebook.com/SandraStVictorSupport) and Twitter (@SandraStVictor), but stop by her website (www.SandraStVictor.com) to all things SSV. Oya’s Daughter is available today via your favorite digital retailer and if you’re in NYC, there are a limited number of tickets available for tonight’s album release party at Joe’s Pub.

Al-Lateef Farmer