Wunmi

In the world of music, Wunmi is a one-off, an artist that effortlessly joins the dots between Nigeria’s Youruba and Afrobeat heritage, New York’s house pedigree and London’s jazz, broken beat and classic street soul sounds.

Born in London, Wunmi aka Ibiwunmi Omotayo Olufunke Felicity Olaiya lived in Nigeria for 10 years, returning to the UK aged 14. "Moving back to England, the same feeling of not fitting in hunted me and it was at that point my identity started shifting, like ...who am i?" She retreated into a world of her imagination, finding expression in clothes, and in her later teens on the dance floors of London Clubs. "With time I became Wunmigirl!. I became comfortable with me." The enduring image from Wunmi’s early years in music was in summer 1986 as the dancer silhouetted in SOUL II SOUL’s ‘Back To Life’ video. As an integral dancer within the Soul II Soul set-up, Wunmi quickly established a bold, self-styled image with flowing braids and her own outrageous clothes which became a valuable addition to the Funki Dred identity. She was subsequently chosen as an icon of London underground club culture when featured in Kiss FM London's first advertising campaign as a commercial station.

“I love dancing and love DJs because they can make me travel.“ And travel she did in the late ‘90s, teaming up with KENNY ‘DOPE’ GONZALES and LOUIE VEGA for MASTERS AT WORK classic 1998 re-work of Fela Kuti’s ‘Expensive Sh*t’, ‘M.A.W. Expensive (Tribute To Fela)’ and the equally strong follow-ups, ‘Ekabo’ and ‘Time Is Now’. The tracks paved the way for a slew of Nu Yorican Afro-house workouts from the likes of DENNIS FERRER, JEROME SYDENHAM and more and stamped Wunmi’s unique vocal style on dancefloors worldwide. The collab continued on at the Miami Winter Conference and Masters At Work’s legendary Nu Yorican Soul parties in 2000 and 2001 where Wunmi performed through the Havana cigar smoke alongside STEPHANIE MILLS, JOCELYN BROWN, JODY WATLEY, ROY AYERS and more.

More acclaimed collaborations followed: her solo debut, ‘What A See’, brilliantly re-worked by A Guy Called Gerald, and OSUNLADE’s ‘Rader Du’ for Soul Jazz in 2001, Paper magazine promptly voted Wunmi as one of their‘50 Beautiful People’. Premier league producers continued to queue up

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