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May 16, 2025 • 15 mins

Join @thebuzzknight with singer-songwriter musician Alya. Her path into music was sparked by a deep well of resilience, and her creative spirit has touched listeners around the world. Alya is a Grammy winning artist and philanthropist known for her soulful melodies and dedication to making a positive impact on the world. Born and raised in the Soviet Union, her passion for music began at the age of 7. Her musical style blends elements of inspiration, pop and dance, resulting in a sound both distinctive and mesmerizing. She has collaborated with legends like Eric Clapton and producer-engineer Bill Schnee and she discusses that work along with her newest work with Erica Campbell( 1/2 of the Grammy-winning duo Mary Mary).

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Episode Transcript

Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Taking a Walk.

Speaker 2 (00:01):
This was a very surprise collaboration you Eric Clipton. He
has only won Christmas record and he never never ever
done collaboration on Christmas with any other artists. I got
called from team to come to studio, and I came
to studio and he turned in on Silent Night, which
was one of the songs on the Christmas EP. So
as he turned Silent Night, I'm like, oh my god,

(00:22):
just turn it off. I'm so tired of listening. And
then he's legist wait a second, and then I hear
Eric Clipton voice, I'm like, oh, oh my gosh.

Speaker 1 (00:29):
Welcome to the Taking on Walk podcast with your host
Buzz Night. Buzz talks with musicians and takes you inside
their creative process and their lifelong inspirations. Today he speaks
with Oh Yeah, a singer songwriter who was inspired by
her early passion for creating melodies and songs. Born in
the Soviet Union, she began her musical path with classical

(00:52):
training at the age of seven. She's collaborated with Eric
Clapton and her next release, Hope. The Remix features Erica
Campbell and d Smoke. Here's Buzz with all Yah on
the Taken a Walk podcast.

Speaker 3 (01:06):
Well, oh yeah, thanks for being Untaken a Walk. And
since the podcast is called taking a Walk, I wanted
to ask you if you could take a walk with
someone living or dead, who would you take a walk
with and where would you take that walk?

Speaker 2 (01:24):
You know, I would actually had two people in mind
when you were starting your question, and maybe I would
take them buzz for a walk. You know. One would
be classical Russian writer poet Alexandra Pushkin. It may may
know in the United States, but he shaped Russian literature
and I was a big, big fan when I was

(01:45):
in my middle school.

Speaker 4 (01:47):
It's a you have to you have to study Pushkin
in the middle school, so there's no escape from that.
And a lot of people hated him because of language
was outdated and.

Speaker 2 (01:58):
There was like it was a lot, But I loved
him and I believe that he shaped in a lot
of way the way how I think as a boyet.
When I write my lyrics, I do. I do take
an inspiration from him, from the metaphors and from symbolism
and from how deep he goes to describe all the

(02:21):
nuances of you know, human soul. But the other person
that I would love to walk and I'm really very
often think about her. It's my grandma. She passed away
a long, long time ago, and she was the one
who I would say probably the only one who had
any connection to music. She was a church singer, choir singer,

(02:42):
and she was singing a lot around me, and I
loved to sing with her, and she would listen to me,
look at me and would say to me, oh, my gosh,
you are so close to God. And you know, she
had three daughters, and my mom was her youngest daughter,
so I was like her younger's granddaughter. And she always
felt like I have some special spiritual connection with someone,

(03:06):
and I do. I do take it very seriously right now.
You know, when I have this platform as a singer,
as an artist, and especially when I worked on my
my song Hope, which is very spiritual, this came to
my mind very frequently.

Speaker 3 (03:23):
Well, let's talk about the story behind Hope. You know
what inspired it and what you learned about creating music
for social change.

Speaker 2 (03:36):
When I wrote the song, I wasn't thinking about creating
any social change. I was just really in a very
dark place actually, and the song was for me an
attempt to get out of there and When I wrote it,
the lyrics were so inspiring and motivational to me. I

(03:58):
realized that that could be the hell in hand for
millions of people out there that probably have moments like
I just had. And when I distributed song and it
was out, that just became absolute true. People started making

(04:18):
these videos on social media spotlighting little acts of kindness
that my song Hope inspired them to do, and it
became a movement that I later called be the Hope Campaign,
And it inspired me to find it better partner for
the song to make bigger changes and inspire more people.

(04:41):
And that's how song became a song for the UNISEF.
You know, we did a collaboration with UNISEEF donated shares
to unief, you say, and song is making a lot
of changes since then.

Speaker 3 (04:54):
So you had an interesting career path, the path of
being a journalist and then ultimately being a Grammy winning artist,
and I wanted to ask you what did you learn
from your journalism career that influences you to this day
with your artistry surrounding music and change.

Speaker 2 (05:19):
The responsibility because when you when you sit in front
of the microphone, you understand that you're responsible for every
single things that comes out of your mouth. And now
being as singer, being an artist, when I have a
platform and mike the phone in front of me, I'm

(05:40):
really careful of what I say. I'm really careful about
my partners, about people I'm associated with, because I understand
the magnitude of it.

Speaker 3 (05:54):
So take us behind the scenes. When you did the
remix with Erica Campbell and d Smoke, what was that process, Like.

Speaker 2 (06:05):
Oh my gosh, this is such a great song because
as much as I love original Hope, this song is
something else. It's completely different dimension and presence of Erica Campbell,
who is just absolutely gorgeous, amazing gospel singer with multiple awards,
and she's just such a sweet person. You know, she

(06:28):
has these powerful vocals that I wanted to put in
the song and did Smoke. It's from a very different perspective.
When he came in the studio and started rapping, it
was so cool. I mean, the song really became a
Manhattan project if you wish. And this is actually the
idea that I did have in the very beginning. I

(06:50):
really felt like the world needs to hear something like
We're the World song, and there is nothing like that
out there. There is nothing like that that is very inspiring,
very powerful, very simple that unites artists. And when I
had a chance to collaborate with Eric and you smoke
with that and we actually have a couple more people

(07:12):
probably coming into the remix, it was it was that.
It was that with the world song that will be
changing lives. The song is just unwrapping, just picking up
this team. It's beautiful. It was very organic, it was
very fun. It was very fast collaboration, and I loved
every second of it.

Speaker 3 (07:32):
What's a perfect day for you as a creator that
makes you happy? What what does that day look like?

Speaker 2 (07:40):
Oh, my gosh, like they're probably very probably very boring
from the outsider. You know, I really love working in
the studio. I love the stage obviously, but on the stage,
you I mean, you're very true to yourself, but in
the same time, it's a little bit showing off. And
I'm by a nature and very shot an introvert person.

(08:02):
So ideal day for me would be, you know, make
my morning drink be tea or coffee or maybe a
Macha lata that I really love because I'm a big
fan of everything that came from Japan, and Macho is delicious,
and then I would go to studio and I would
spend the whole day there writing songs, writing melodies, you know,

(08:23):
talking with my band members, with my partner Tim Cartman
that I work with currently, and just you know, go home,
see my kids, give them hugs, and make dinner and
just you know, go to sleep. Very boring.

Speaker 3 (08:40):
It sounds very contented, you know, and it sounds like
you know what you like and you're happy when those
moments occur, and you don't take them lightly.

Speaker 2 (08:52):
Oh. Absolutely, I'm trying to cherish every single moment of
my life. And you know, we're all humans, and sometimes
I'm not very good about it, but I tried every day.
I really wake up every day happy, ready to go.

Speaker 3 (09:09):
So you've had some pretty incredible collaboration with some other
folks as well that I want to call out. One
of them is the Grammy winning producer engineer Bill Schnee,
known for a lot of great work, Steely Dan work,
among others. And then there's this other guy, Eric I

(09:31):
think his last name is Clapton, that you maybe had
a little work with. Can you talk about what those
collaborations are like and how they came about.

Speaker 5 (09:43):
Yeah, this is so funny.

Speaker 2 (09:45):
You know.

Speaker 5 (09:45):
My husband, he likes to joke about it. He would say, oh,
do you know this guy, by the way, his name
is Eric Clapton. He was trying to start off his
career of Aliah. So I'm so fortunate to have all
this wonderful book or collaborators in my career, especially this
early on, because you know, I feel, I still feel

(10:08):
with all the achievements that I have, that I'm just
warming up. I really believe there is a bigger future
for me. And I didn't write my best song yet,
I didn't do my best performance yet. But Bill Shnie
he's wonderful.

Speaker 2 (10:21):
You know. He was my entry to American market as
an artist, and he produced my first song, American Beauty,
which was inspired by my personal journey as immigrants from
different country and all other women that bring such a
diversity in beauty to America. And he was awesome. You know,
he was very he was very patient, and I think

(10:43):
it was perfect for me when I was just kind
of trying to figure out who I am, I would
really be maybe even crushed by some other involvement. When
you know, sometimes producer they want to do whatever they
want to do. They don't really always say artists, they
just do whatever they feel like most commercial, the best

(11:04):
fit for the market. So Bill was not like that.
He was very patient. He really listened what I wanted
to deliver, and the results were very successful. You know,
American Beauty charted on Billboard charts and two different categories.
And the most important part of Bill was you know,
he introduced me to Tim Carmen, which I'm working right now.

(11:24):
He's my musical partner. And whatever we created with Team afterwards,
it became big, you know, because of the Team. Collaboration
with Eric Clapton happened. Team worked with Eric foro over
the decade and he knows him personally, and this was
a very surprise collaboration. You know, Eric Clapton, he has

(11:45):
only won Christmas record and he never never ever done
collaboration on Christmas with any other artists. And here I am,
you know, like coming up artists from America, and I
recorded my first Christmas EP and it was all on
a distribution and then I got called from Team to
come to studio and I came to studio and he

(12:05):
turned on Silent Night, which was one of the songs
on the Christmas EP, and you know, sometimes when you
work on a record for a while, you get tired
of songs, and that was that moment. So as soon
as he turned Silent Night, I'm like, oh my god,
just turn it off. I'm so tired of listening. Already
sung bazillions of times. And then he's look, just wait
a second. And then I hear Eric Clipton voice. I'm like, oh,

(12:28):
oh my gosh. So it turned out, you know, behind
the scenes, he showed Eric the record and Eric just
loved the voice. He said, I really love her voice.
I would like to sing on the record. I would
like to be the part of it. And I mean
when when people like Eric come to the to the stage,
you know, it's it's instant classic at this point. So

(12:48):
the song really stands out from the EP, and it
loved by my fans and by Eric fans. It's really
one of the songs that's when I listened to it,
I feel like I'm floating on top of clouds.

Speaker 3 (13:00):
That's amazing. Well, in closing, Alya, I want to commend you,
first of all, you know, with using your your music
as a platform for for good and for change and
for you know, just spreading spreading good, good vibes and
making a difference. If you could talk right now to

(13:24):
an artist maybe who's listening to this, who maybe is
on the fence and not sure how to use their
music and their platform in their own way, as you
have found your way, talk to them directly and talk
them off that ledge so they can try to make

(13:46):
a difference with their work.

Speaker 2 (13:48):
The biggest mistake that I did was not to release
my music fast enough and at the moment when I
felt this is the right moment. You should trust your God.
You should really trust your God. If you feel like
this is something that you want people here, you need

(14:10):
to go and release it. Don't wait for big managers,
don't wait for big names, don't try to associate with
anyone else. If there is a spark in you, people
will come over to you and to your advantage. The
social media today, as much as a distraction that they
can bring, they actually a window to reach people. So

(14:30):
go out there, use social media, find your crowd, find
your tribe, and the rest will just come to you
just like that.

Speaker 3 (14:38):
Thank you for making a difference, thank you for making
beautiful music, and thank you for being on the Taking
a Walk podcast. I really appreciate it.

Speaker 2 (14:47):
Thank you so much, Thank you for having.

Speaker 1 (14:48):
Me, Thanks for listening to this episode of the Taking
a Walk podcast. Share this and other episodes with your
friends and follow us so you never miss an episode.
Taking a Walk is available on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
and wherever you get your podcasts.
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Lynn Hoffman

Lynn Hoffman

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