BY: DELLIA RISMAY
When some people think of Marsha Ambrosius, they think of her role as “The Songstress” in the duo known as Floetry. The R&B/Soul duo created hits like Floetic and Say Yes, which dominated airwaves in the early 2000s. These days, Marsha is focused on her solo career, life as a mother and a wife, and being a source of inspiration for young artists.
Marsha was born in Liverpool, England, to a family that has a love for music. She credits her father’s musical background and her mother’s extensive vinyl collection for piquing her interest. When Marsha reminisces about the days when she would hold a hairbrush in the mirror and pretend to be the opening act for stars like Whitney Houston or Madonna, she also remembers the love and support she received from her family. “It basically got me into music […] without knowing that that was going to be my life growing up,” she told Toronto Caribbean. “I was surrounded by great people that encourage creative arts.”
This encouragement coupled with determination and a love of music led Marsha to team up with her high school classmate, Natalie Stewart, and form what would become the Grammy-nominated duo Floetry.
Since then, Marsha has gone on to create music as a solo artist. Her debut solo album, Late Nights and Early Mornings, was released in March 2011. She received her first Grammy nominations for her solo work in 2012 for Best R&B Song and Best R&B Performance for Far Away, the second single off of her debut album.
This September, Marsha will be dropping a new album. It’s been about four years since she’s released new music, and her upcoming album offers fans a glimpse into how her life has changed over the past few years. Two major changes: her marriage to her husband, Dez Billups, and the birth of her first child, Nyla, who the album will be named after.
In the time leading up to these changes, Marsha had to push herself and be open to new experiences. She put a lot of thought into relocating from Liverpool and had to reassure herself that her career in music was truly what she wanted. But she also had to be open about other aspects of her life. “I allowed myself to open up and fall in love, and trust. And time is everything, it was perfect,” she explains.
She’s even come to find that as she entered this new chapter in her life, she found herself relating differently to her past material. “By the time I’m now in love, and a wife, and a mother, I’m now closer to songs that I’ve written over the course of my 20-year professional career and go ‘I was actually talking to myself all of this time.’ I was truly kind of throwing out in the universe what I wanted to come back, and it did. And I’m living it!” she says with a laugh.
The material on NYLA will give listeners a musical storyline of the events, themes, and emotions taking place in Marsha’s life and the world around her. Marsha hopes that one day, Nyla will be one of those listeners. “It’s the journey to get to her. So, by the time I’m done all the traveling, all the self-discovery, it turns into Nyla,” she explains. Her daughter was named in honor of her father’s upbringing—he was born in L.A., but raised in Buffalo, New York. Combined with the fact that Marsha has toured the U.S. for a large portion of her musical career, the name is symbolic in every sense of the word. Marsha says the songs on the upcoming album can be looked at as pinpoints. “As she does grow older, we’ll be talking about ‘well this song was before I met your dad’, or ‘I don’t know if you may remember it, but we sing it every day, almost’, and ‘you were born to this song.’”
While Marsha embarked on her transformative musical journey, she has been sure to help other artists chase their dreams. Last month, the singer/songwriter was a special guest at the launch for Honey Jam Canada. The program provides networking, mentorship, performance and promotional opportunities to female artists between the ages of 14-25. “The lending of knowledge that we’re instilling in these young women, these young, creative women, that need that platform. For me, it was a beautiful experience to be able to not only lend advice and see them through and guide them to a means to an end, that it can and does happen with hard work,” she explained. “I encourage the conversation not to stop at Honey Jam—these are women who stay in close contact and lift each other up.”
Marsha’s hope that women continue to be supportive of each other covers all women, not just artists. She says that fear often holds women back from reaching out to each other. “It’s what allows us to hold back and have these guards up and hold our secrets alone and almost suffer in silence. There’s empowerment in admitting your own truth, and it’s okay to confide in other women […] once you let go, you can move forward.”
