møya rey is giving us the ultimate afro melody with “BACK UP”
Dominican-American New York-based indie music artist møya rey brings us her newest single “BACK UP”. Using her multicultural amalgamation of styles from West Africa and the Caribbean, she conveys dazzling and stunning lyrics in English, Spanish, French, and Portuguese.
Due to her Dominican background and her travels to over twenty countries, møya takes her multicultural experiences and infuses them into her music. In 2019 she traveled to South Africa, where she delved into KwaZulu-Natal, Limpopo, Pretoria, Johannesburg, and Cape Town. She described her time in South Africa as enriching, learning about AfroHouse and Amapiano, she even had the opportunity to sing to the former King of the Zulu nation. Thanks to this she got deep in touch with her black roots and ancestry, seeking not only, to reach people in South Africa with her music but all people around the globe.
"Since visiting South Africa, I mostly wanted to live out my dream of making a house track. I am also a DJ, and House is my favorite genre to DJ. BSNYEA showed me the different house tracks he's made and I knew it was finally my time. BSNYEA produced, recorded, and engineered the song BACK UP. We layered the Amapiano baseline with drill beats, the Dominican güira, Brazilian cuíca, and Brazilian Funk at the end." - møya
Speaking a little bit of møya’s debut EP, 'Lost in Translation', she has perfectly woven Amapiano Afro-house rhythms, and bass with R&B. møya is impossible to lock out in a single genre, she effortlessly combines R&B, Soul, Afrobeat, and Hip-Hop with her provocative lyrical work into an overwhelming chain reaction, creating a breathtaking melody for each release. Taking advantage of her polyglot talent, she uses her expertise in Spanish, French, Portuguese and of course, English to make every song an explosive delight to the senses.
Focusing on her latest single, “BACK UP” exhibits an astonishing melody mixing Drill, Hip Hop, House, and møya's favorite, Amapiano. She sets loose her queerness and jumps between English, Spanish, and Portuguese verses and choruses effortlessly, using feminism as a core for lyrical work she’ll make you lose yourself into a burst of raw emotions.
“The lyrics for BACK UP were inspired by my experiences as a woman being catcalled in the most annoying and offensive ways possible. Specific to this song is my experience visiting my mother and younger sister in the South Bronx and feeling harassed every time I walked out of the house. BACK UP is lowkey a diss track to these random men who are outside trynna holla at young girls. Sometimes I intentionally walk with the most stank facial expression on in order to deflect any unwanted attention, but even that doesn’t work. I still get unwanted cat calls in the most belittling way. So, the lyrics are partly about telling these crusty, dusty, musty men to BACK UP.”
Story: Armando Vera.