Now Lives Cat-sitting at a pal’s one-bedroom condominium in Chinatown after a 3-month stint in Los Angeles.
Claim to Fame: Zola Thompson is a growing singer and songwriter of melodic, folksy ballads popular with the bicoastal artwork and fashion scene. She remains a relative unknown. However, her songbird voice and breezy downtown fashion have greatly rewarded her.
Vogue defined her voice as “transfixing,” likening her to Joni Mitchell and Joan Armatrading, and featured her as a “formidable talent remaking fashion” in a feature photographed by Ryan McGinley.
Big Break: Ms. Thompson grew up making a song, surrounded by her inventive family. (Her father is Marc Anthony Thompson, a funk and rock musician called Chocolate Genius. Her mother, Kate Sterlin, is the best artwork photographer, and her half-sister, Tessa Thompson, is an actress.)
After a chum sent her demos to Joanna Cohen, a tune supervisor in New York who specializes in rising skills, she got serious about her artwork. “I changed into a dark place and had all these demos and didn’t know what to do with them,” Ms. Thompson stated. One of the first humans Ms. Cohen introduced her to was Daniel Aged, a musician and manufacturer, who quickly became a close buddy and collaborator.
Latest Project: In February, Ms. Thompson launched her first unmarried, “Noise,” a moody ballad that is a component of experimental pop and an element of bluesy R&B. She recently finished at the Frieze Los Angeles artwork fair and, in advance in April, at Joe’s Pub in New York. “It feels large for me because it’s sentimental,” she said. “I used to go there as a kid. My dad used to play there all of the time. Next Thing: On May thirteen, she can headline a gala for Wide Rainbow, a nonprofit in Brooklyn that brings present-day art to after-college programs. She is likewise running on her debut EP of 5 songs with Mr. Aged. “Daniel’s into making area for my voice,” she said.
“It leaves quite a few rooms for my melodies and the lyrics to return via. Avant-Garde Spaces: To echo the moodiness of her songs, Ms. Thompson loves to carry them out in offbeat places. In Los Angeles, she performed at the Black Rabbit Rose, a speakeasy-style bar that gives dinner theater and burlesque indicates. And in New York, she played at the Park Church Co-Op, a progressive church inside the Greenpoint neighborhood of Brooklyn.
