Songwriters Guild Live with Zaynab Wilson

Songwriters Guild Live

Songwriters Guild Live is a weekly radioshow in Amsterdam, focussed on artists who write their own songs. This week your host was Ro Halfhide. A Montréal-born Trinidadian-Canadian, Zaynab comes to the music scene with a wealth of cultural and musical diversity. Her recent Live EP (2018), is the debut to her career as a fronting singer-songwriter where she draws musical and rhythmic inspiration from her Caribbean roots and merges with folk, her heart and soul. Her voice is sweet, unaffected and naturally blended, and carries a strong sense of rhythm. Zaynab grew up in a large family of musicians, specializing on Steelpan, and got an early start to the life of an artist. Being the youngest of the lot of six children, the formula was already set by the time she was six. Zaynab was performing throughout Eastern Canada with her family, the "Von-Trapps of Steelpan", and gaining invaluable life lessons. Now, in addition to steelpan, Zaynab has grown into a sensitive, dynamic and well-rounded musician and is an equally talented percussionist, vocalist, songwriter and drummer, holding a drum-major degree from Humber College. Over the years, Zaynab has had the opportunity to perform with a variety of local and international artists including Alysha Brilla, Jason Wilson, Martin Carthy, Dave Swarbrick and Pee Wee Ellis, and performing at notable festivals including Woodford Folk Festival (Australia), Hillside Festival (Canada) and Celtic Connections (Scotland). On her own front, Zaynab took her Live EP tour on the road to Western Canada in September 2018 and over to Eastern Canada with Arlene Paculan in November 2018, performing in both house concerts and local live music venues. As for 2019, Zaynab is working towards releasing a series of singles, a new EP and tour dates, so far, in both Canada and USA. When she isn’t performing, Zaynab runs music workshops at various schools within the multiple school boards in Ontario. Her workshops are delivered using steelpan, percussion or band instruments with the goal being more than learning repertoire. Her workshops run in schools with higher numbers of newcomers to Canada, for groups with special learning abilities, as part of health and wellness conferences and for overall team building and strengthening of non-verbal and nonviolent communication. She recently attended a Musicians Without Borders Training of Workshop Leaders program, in Ede, to help enhance her workshop leading abilities. In a realistic world, Zaynab would be able to integrate touring as a performer and running music-based workshops along the way.