Shaya, who is nominated for R&B Artist of the Year in the 2021 Boston Music Awards, performs tonight, Thursday, December 2, in a showcase at the Jungle Community Music Club in Somerville. Photo courtesy of Shaya

Music

Alum Shaya Nominated for Boston Music Award for Best R&B Artist

Pursued music through a cappella at BU—you can vote for her through Friday

Shaya is a rising Boston singer with a sometimes sultry look and a sound that’s earned her a Boston Music Awards nomination for R&B Artist of the Year.

Sharmetha Ramanan (Sargent’19) is a veteran of the a cappella music scene at BU who is studying at the MGH Institute of Health Professions to become a nurse practitioner.

Shaya and Sharmetha are also the same person.

“I really feel like I found my voice at BU,” she says.

You can vote for Shaya in the Boston Music Awards (BMAs) here (scroll down), but you’ll need to hurry—voting closes tomorrow, Friday, December 3. She’s on Instagram @shayaaa.music, Facebook here, her Soundcloud is here, and she even has a YouTube channel.

Shaya started early with music. Her mother, Shamitra “Shami” Ramanan taught piano and was also a billing manager. “She taught me beginning when I was three, as soon as I could have control of the motor function of my fingers,” Shaya says. Her dad, Ramachandran “Ram” Ramanan (Questrom’89), is a BU alum as well and works as a software engineer. 

Her talents could hardly be contained by one instrument. Growing up in Wilmington, Mass., she played clarinet in school marching bands, and flute, sax, and drums at different times, plus piano with the jazz band. She also sang whenever she got the chance. Her parents had emigrated from Sri Lanka in the 1980s, and she learned to play several traditional Sri Lankan instruments.

American pop music got its hooks in her eventually, though.

“I wasn’t allowed to listen to the radio before middle school,” she says, beginning to laugh. “All my friends were listening to all these songs and I didn’t know any of them, so I asked my mom, ‘Can I please, like, listen to the radio the next time we’re in the car?’ She says, ‘Let’s see,’ and turns it on, and the first song that comes on is ‘Sexy Can I’ [by Ray J], and she’s like, ‘ABSOLUTELY NOT!’ She shut it off and I had no radio for the next two years.”

Eventually she got to listen and became a fan of female R&B singers who matched vocal chops with emotional intensity, in particular Mariah Carey and Beyoncé. But she didn’t begin to believe in herself as a singer until later in high school, when she became a counselor at the Boston Symphony Orchestra’s Days in the Arts camp at Tanglewood, which she had previously attended as a fourth-grader.

“I think one day at camp, I was singing in the shower, and my campers were outside listening I guess, and I came out and they were like,‘Oh my god, you’re so good!’ and told me I should start singing for real.”

That fall, she successfully auditioned for her high school’s a cappella group and even became music director. That led her to take a shot at BU’s lively and competitive a cappella scene when she arrived on Comm Ave. “It’s honestly very tough,” she says, comparing it to sorority rushing, going from room to room to audition for different groups with dozens of other hopefuls. But she got into the group she wanted, the Bostones, and her freshman year they won a semifinal round of the International Championship of Collegiate A Cappella tournament at Symphony Hall—“one of the top five moments of my life”—to make it to the finals in New York City.

They didn’t win, but Shaya eventually became the group’s music director, which meant creating the vocal arrangements for each song they covered, one more arrow in her quiver of musical talents.

“I feel like BU really gave me the tools I needed to start my own music career once I graduated,” she says, “because of the a cappella and just getting the opportunity for all these other performances at these huge events like Orientations, and making a bunch of connections with people throughout the community through music and performances.”

That didn’t happen right away, though. Her first year at MGH wasn’t easy, and she kept her mind on her studies—“until COVID hit and they pulled us out of the clinic and everything went online.”

Alone in her room in spring 2020 with time on her hands and the Garage Band program on her MacBook, she “started playing around to see what I could come up with” and “accidentally” created her first songs—music, vocals, everything. She played one for an artist friend, who immediately said it was good and she should release it and start making more.

“That was the moment where I’m like, OK, we’re really going to do this, become a recording artist in the middle of a pandemic,” she says. By the end of the summer, with the help of a $20 microphone, she had an album’s worth of material to start pushing out there into the competitive and sometimes clique-y Boston music scene. (You can listen to her track Down here.)

“As a first generation Sri-Lankan American, Tamil brown girl, and female producer, I feel like I wear many hats,” she told the Boston music blog Vanyaland, noting that sexism and racism sometimes come into play behind the scenes.

Networking was harder in the pandemic, but Shaya kept at it, mainly using Instagram to entice listeners (@shayaaa.music) and introduce herself to people in the business.

“I feel like it’s easy to make music and put it out, but I think your growth comes from other people hearing, sharing, liking, and resharing content,” she says. “It takes a lot of work to get that ball rolling, but once it does—look at Clairo, who was a Boston artist. She started out just like I did, making beats in her little bedroom, and now she’s, like, huge. You never know who’ll hear your music and give you opportunities. It’s all about getting that momentum.”

Eventually she landed a manager, Tano Wixon, and started working with him in April and got airplay on Jam’N 94.5. Live performances followed, as well as actual studio time to make a second album, Universe, which will be released early in 2022—just ahead of her graduation from the MGH program in May. And enough people have heard her music to earn her the BMA nomination (she’s in a field of 10).

“I’m still trying to find what’s unique to me,” Shaya says. “My sound blends R&B, pop, hip-hop, and indie—it’s a spectrum. I really hate the word genre, which limits you to this one thing and puts you in a box. I really try to branch out as much as I can. I never say no to an opportunity unless it’s really not my vibe. Right now I’m really into slow, chill, R&B stuff. I feel like I’m growing more into myself as an artist and being confident with my own sound.”

And how does her mom feel about all this? Shaya grins. “She’s super supportive. She wants the best for me. She’d love it if I blew up overnight. We’re doing good.”

So make Shaya’s mom happy and vote for her in the BMAs.

You can hear Shaya among the performers at a showcase organized by Wixon tonight at 8 pm at the Jungle Community Music Club, 6 Sanborn Court, Somerville, via Eventbrite (18+, $15). And you can root for her at the BMAs, December 8, at 8 pm at Brighton Music Hall; tickets here (18+ $20).