As you will have heard many times on this podcast series so far, Paul Weller has a long tradition of supporting up and coming music artists.

Welsh neo soul artist Nia Wyn is another huge talent to get his stamp of approval and it was a real joy to hear her story on this episode of the Paul Weller Fan Podcast.

Her music takes influence from Soul, RnB, Jazz, Pop and Hip-Hop to create something new, something that is uniquely hers. Trust me when I say that her incredible, unmistakable vocals will blow you away with each release and live performance....

In our podcast chat, we dig into the recent past to hear about her connections with Paul Weller from a WhatsApp intro that leads to Paul picking Nia up from Woking station for a songwriting and recording session at Black Barn Studio (Paul Weller HQ) and the creation of her beautiful soulful song “Turnstyles”.

Released as a single in June 2018, Paul plays bass, hammond organ and piano and sings backing vocals on the song.

We also chatted about live performance and as you'll hear on the podcast, Nia opened for Paul at his concert in York in August 2018, along with supporting him on dates for the rescheduled-rescheduled On Sunset / Fat Pop tour in 2021.

2022 saw her release more new music with her Magical Thinking EP and she also reached the finals of Glastonbury Festival's Emerging Talent competition. That Summer saw her go on to play the Somerset festival along with Latitude and she supported Paul Weller again at Lytham Festival... Not a bad year right?

Nia is another artist, to be endorsed by Paul, whose songs take you on a journey.

A raw and powerful style of storytelling that at times can be observational - stories about others, in the third person or more often it would seem that she is singing something deeply personal, open, honest and introspective. Not afraid to wear her heart on her sleeve to tackle topics that may appear to be taboo (her own mental health challenges as example) in an age where those areas of discussion really shouldn't be.

She has an incredible knack of making you think with her music whilst also having that all important gift of melody. Every release so far has been pretty special and builds on what has come before and I'm genuinely excited by what is to come in the future.

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