If you take just one thing from AHI’s music, let it be this: you are not alone.
“No matter how low, no matter how defeated you may feel, you’re never really on your own in this world,” he explains. “We’re all connected to each other, and when you find your calling and your purpose and you tap into those connections, beautiful things start to happen.”
AHI’s extraordinary body of work, is proof of just that. A collection of music that is bold and expansive, with a captivating, immersive sound that showcases the raw power of his gravel-on-silk vocals like never before. His songs are deeply introspective, looking inwards with piercing insight and unflinching honesty, and AHI’s performances are similarly direct and fearless, blurring the lines between roots, folk, pop, and soul as he grapples with pain and healing, faith and resilience, connection and identity.
While much has been made of AHI’s years spent backpacking everywhere from the hills of Ethiopia to the jungles of Trinidad, his music tells the story of an even more profound journey, the internal quest for understanding and self-reflection that propelled the globetrotting singer/songwriter to the forefront of the international Folk/Roots stage.
AHI’s path is a far cry from his humble upbringing in Brampton, Ontario, to a traditional Caribbean family of teachers. It wasn’t until college that he began teaching himself to sing and play guitar, and though he was by all accounts an exceptional student, he dropped out of school before graduation and began traveling the world with little more than a backpack to his name. Relying on the kindness of strangers to get by, AHI hiked, meditated, and fasted his way across Canada, the Caribbean, and Africa, learning more about human nature and the contours of his own soul through his expeditions than a lifetime of classroom education could ever have taught him.
“When you put yourself out there like that, you learn how to see the goodness of humanity,” AHI explains.
Special thanks to the Brampton Arts Organization for their support of Brampton #GTMF24 artists.