Fritzwa was born and raised on the Lower East Side of NYC, and eventually moved to the West Coast for a job with Nike. She says, “I’ve been into music since I was a child. I took classical and jazz piano growing up and was always listening to things that weren’t on the radio. I’d listen to Jazz old soul and big band as a kid. My father definitely has the most influence on my musical taste. I listened to his CDs and the radio stations he listened to growing up. I also listened to hot 97, being from NYC. So there’s a heavy hip hop influence as well.”
About the creation of the album, she says, “I was pretty lonely and unfulfilled when I wrote the album. Making the album was kind of my own catharsis. I was slowly getting out of a romantic relationship, was unhappy at work, and still didn’t really have many friends in my new home. Making it gave me something to do when I wasn’t working and was also setting me up for what I was going to do next.”
Check out “Sittin Pretty” — the latest single off of her debut album Avenue A. Premiered by Afropunk who compared her sound to Erykah Badu, “Sittin Pretty” is a poetic, vulnerable glimpse into the isolation Fritzwa felt after moving from her home of NYC to Portland, Oregon.
The video for “Sittin Pretty” was created by Fritzwa, Ikaika Cofer and Anthony Bryant. “We shot it in the winter, over the course of a couple of months. There were a ton of obstacles; phones dying, limited drone batteries, snow… lol the list goes on. I was freezing during every shot, so was Tiki (Ikaika), but somehow we managed to pull it off.” They wanted to highlight the landscapes of Oregon and find ways to convey loneliness in really beautiful settings visually. This process began with location scouting (online and in person), storyboarding, and then producing it.
Fritzwa doesn’t back down from a challenge or the obstacles that come her way when it comes to her music. She says she’s been teaching herself bass for about a year and even wrote the basslines to “Lies and Ego” and “Mother Mary” while she was learning. Through her time in the music industry, she says she’s learned many lessons. First, “Take other people’s opinions about your dreams with a grain of salt. Things people say are impossible are not that, they are improbable. And the more time you dedicate to anything improbable, the less improbable it becomes.” She also says that being your own champion and making your voice heard is imperative as a woman. “[Being a woman] forced me to be assertive. Right now, I’m managing myself, so its important that I’m heard and understood. So I’m very direct about what I need and I’m very direct in my communication.”
Keep up with Fritzwa because she’s got even more on deck in 2018.
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