Born in Baltimore and raised all over the globe (Sweden, California and New York), the half
Ghanaian, half Ugandan songstress Julia Kwamya, known as Germans, spent most of her childhood listening to a lot of Highlife music as well as feel-good 80s classics by David Bowie and Tears for Fears. She cites all of those influences as key ingredients for her own particular brand of bossa nova-infused dream pop.

“Shining with sheer confidence, listen to her and you’re teleported to worlds tinged with 80s synths, with bossanova, and with just a dash of classic diva all wrapped up in a down-to-earth
package that’s simultaneously otherworldly,” PopDust writer E.R. Pulgar said of Kwamya in a
recent interview, likening her work to a young Nina Simone.

The striking, statuesque singer first burst onto the music scene in 2013. “It really started out of frustration because I am an actor, and nothing was happening for me in a certain way,” said Kwamya. “I wasn’t going to auditions that I wanted, I wasn’t making anything and I felt stifled by this relationship that I was in at that time, so I decided to start writing my tracks.”. Following her first impromptu show in Brooklyn that year, she decided

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