Hill St. Soul
@ the PizzaExpress Jazz Club
6 February 2016

Click an image to enlarge.

Biography

Hilary Mwelwa was born in Lusaka, Zambia and relocated to London with her family at age five. As a child she adopted her father’s love of music, as their home was immersed with the sounds of traditional Zambian music along with American R&B/Soul icons such as Aretha Franklin, Marvin Gaye and Stevie Wonder.

As a graduate of London’s Westminster University, Mwelwa had early ambitions to go into the science field and earned a degree in biological sciences. She shares, “While I was in school studying sciences, I started to explore my musical interests and I decided that I wanted to pursue music more seriously. I took a year off from school and during this time I recorded my first demo a cover of the Aretha Franklin classic ‘Until you come back to me’ (featured debut album Soul Organic). I have never had formal musical training but I was brought up on a diet of Soul, R&B, Gospel and pop music from an early age.” Luckily for us Hilary Mwelwa’s path has led her to follow her heart and her music.

Mwelwa has had the privilege of performing at great events and venues around the world such as Glastonbury, Jool’s Holland, The Drum Rhythm festival in Scandinavia, Jazz café (Camden, London), Capital Jazz Festival Washington, SOB’S (new York) alongside an array of great artists and musical legends such as James Brown, D’Angelo, Angie Stone, Brand New Heavies, Macy Gray, Isaac Hayes, Donell Jones, Boys to Men, Lalah Hathaway, Rashaan Patterson Calvin Richardson, Joe Thomas, K-Ci from Jodeci amongst others.