![\"\"](\"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/09\/victory_boyd.jpg\")
<\/p>\nVictory Boyd was \u201cdiscovered\u201d busking Stevie Wonder songs on the streets and in the subway stations of New York City, and that discovery led to a recording contract not only for her, but for her entire family including her father and eight siblings. The singer-songwriter was a featured performer at the fourth annual LEAF Downtown AVL Festival in Asheville. N.C., August 3 and 4.<\/p>\n
Boyd had been part of her father\u2019s Boys & Girls Choir of Detroit since she was 4 years old. The family eventually moved to New York City where they continued to perform. One of the group\u2019s regular \u201cvenues\u201d was in the underground stations of the city\u2019s subway system. It was there that Boyd \u2014 already a seasoned vocalist \u2014 developed her performing chops. \u201cAs a busker, you performer for a lot of people,\u201d Boyd says. \u201cAnd a lot of them don\u2019t give you the time of day. So you have to build confidence and believe that your art form is still valuable.\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Boyd succeeded on that score. She says that her experience as a busker was valuable. \u201cIt\u2019s rewarding when you see that at the end of the day, maybe twenty people had a really impactful experience from your performance,\u201d she says. \u201cYou don\u2019t feel entitled to their applause; you\u2019re grateful for it. And that translates a lot into this next phase of the music industry where I\u2019m on major stages.\u201d<\/p>\n
Boyd started playing guitar when she was 15, quickly developing her proficiency and writing original songs. She describes her style as \u201ctwo genres: folk and jazz mixed together. The storytelling component combined with acoustic guitar is folksy, but I play a lot of jazz chords and use soul phrasings,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n
The musician received her first big break after a music documentary featured her busking in Central Park, playing a reading of the Nina Simone version of \u201cFeeling Good.\u201d The filmed performance attracted the attention of a music industry figure who in turn raved about it to his friend Jay-Z. \u201cHe was impressed with the video and requested to meet me,\u201d Boyd recalls. \u201cSo me and my dad and all of my siblings went over to Roc Nation to meet him.\u201d<\/p>\n
Jay-Z signed the whole family to a recording contract. \u201cThat was ten years after we started busking in Central Park almost every day,\u201d says Boyd. \u201cIt was a long journey, and it\u2019s not over; this just feels like a new chapter.\u201d<\/p>\n
In June, Boyd released her first full-length album, The Broken Instrument<\/i>. The songs are based around the musician\u2019s voice and acoustic guitar, but rich, deeply textured string arrangements \u2014 many by Boyd herself \u2014 give the album a sophisticated sheen. But Boyd\u2019s busking roots are still key to her work. Speaking in late July about the title track of her new album, she admits, \u201cI just performed it for the first time on stage at my album release party \u2026 two nights ago.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Victory Boyd was \u201cdiscovered\u201d busking Stevie Wonder songs on the streets and in the subway stations of New York City, and that discovery led to a recording contract not only […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":15316,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[30,41,42,44],"tags":[237,3571],"class_list":["post-15315","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-folk","category-interview","category-jazz","category-live-shows","tag-asheville","tag-victory-boyd","cat-30-id","cat-41-id","cat-42-id","cat-44-id","has_thumb"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15315","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15315"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15315\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15317,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15315\/revisions\/15317"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15316"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15315"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15315"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15315"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}