Joy Olasunmibo Ogunmakinpronunciation (born 14 September 1980), known professionally as Ayọ, is a German singer, songwriter and actress. She uses the Yoruba translation Ayọ or Ayo. of her first name Joy.

Her debut album Joyful, released in 2006, reached Double-Platinum status in France, Platinum in Germany and Poland, and Gold status in Switzerland, Italy, and Greece. Interscope Records released the album in the United States on 20 November 2007.

Born in Frechen near Cologne, Germany, she has a son named Nile, who was born in late 2005 and a daughter named Billie-Eve, born July 2010, with the Sierra Leonian-German reggae singer Patrice, from whom she is now separated. At the end of 2007, she moved with her family to the Greenwich Village section of Manhattan in New York City. Currently, she lives in Brooklyn, New York with her children.

Then-president of UNICEF France, Jacques Hintzy, announced on 4 February 2009 that the singer was named patron of UNICEF to promote the right to education for all children in the world.

The French production company MK2 produced the film Ayo Joy, a 90-minute documentary about the singer and her life, in 2009. The film was directed by Raphaël Duroy.

Ayọ was born in 1980 near Cologne, then in West Germany, as the fourth child of a Nigerian father and a German-Sinti mother. She has one sister and two brothers. When she was about six years old, her mother became addicted to heroin and spent some time in jail. After her parents divorced, she and two of her siblings spent periods of time in care and with foster families. She spent four years in a children's home in Schwalmtal-Waldniel where she learned to play violin and piano and became in 1992 a member of its music band "La Taste". When she was fourteen she was considered old enough by the authorities to live again with her father.

At the age of six, Ayọ played the violin for a short time, then turned to the piano and later taught herself to play the guitar. While she was member of the band "La Taste" during her stay at the children's home in Waldniel she and eighteen other young band members recorded during summer 1992 the CD Kido Musik at the recording studio "Man Made Noise". During that time she also appeared for the first time in May 1993 in a music video, La Maladie d`Amour, and performed at a public concert.

When she was about 15, she wrote her first song, which was about her mother, and which helped her to cope with her traumatic childhood. Her musical taste was influenced by her father's large selection of vinyl albums which included Pink Floyd, Fela Kuti, Donny Hathaway, Jimmy Cliff and Bob Marley. When her father, who worked part-time as a DJ while studying engineering in Germany, discovered her singing talent he recorded a first demo tape with her in a studio and allowed her to drop out of school at the age of eighteen.

At twenty-one, Ayọ moved to London and later lived in Paris and New York City. During her time in Paris, her musical talent was noticed by a broader audience, and she gave her first solo concerts, opened 2002 for soul singers Omar and Cody Chesnutt, and signed a contract with Polydor Records. ...

Source: Article "Ayo (singer)" from Wikipedia in English, licensed under CC-BY-SA 3.0.