Andreia Da Silva Wilson
For this artist and repertoire (A&R) project, the artist I have chosen to collaborate with is Andreia Da Silva Wilson. From Leeds, West Yorkshire, Andreia is an 18-year-old singer-songwriter of Angolan descent and fully embraces her identity as a young black female artist. Throughout her relatively short career, Andreia has, and continues to achieve great things. She started her career at The Music House, a Leeds-based charitable trust, which provided her with a safe and welcoming space to be surrounded by like-minded musicians. It was here where she honed her craft, working with mentors Stella Litras and Fredlin Morency to develop her music knowledge and vocal ability. From there, she went on to study at Leeds City College, where she became lead singer and co-manager of her band “What The Funk”. Throughout her college years, Andreia took on many band manager and mentor roles, sharing her passion for music with others. Andreia has since gone on to headline infamous Leeds venues like The Wardrobe, The Lending Rooms and The Key Club, as well as collaborating with great artists such as Mica Sefia and Graft (Graft, 2025).
Andreia is drawn towards the soul and R&B genres that she was brought up by her extremely musical family. Her brothers Rico Reign and Silvah are both active artists and have inspired Andreia to pursue her own career. The brothers’ soul and R&B influences can also be heard in their music, but they are infused with more afro-beat and hip-hop elements. Andreia takes her family influences and incorporates them into more mainstream pop songs, implementing the older styles into more modern singer-songwriter compositions. Her number one motto for her music is “for the soul” and is an extremely powerful representation of Andreia’s goals and aims for her music, which I will explore in more detail later.
I have chosen to work with Andreia because I feel that her sound and style could easily thrive in the current developing music industry. In 2025, we have been witnessing a shift in interest towards more jazz and soul inspired music. Artists like Raye and Olivia Dean are a great example of this and are two artists that are drawing upon older styles of music, leaning away from being overproduced and commercial, choosing to focus on the raw building blocks of the composition. Other artists who deeply influence Andreia include Hannah Rowe and Lizzie Berchie, both of which are smaller artists who have a heavy jazz and soul inspired sound. Throughout my previous band work with Andreia (as co-manager and lead guitarist) I know that she draws heavily upon their musical production, fusing the old with the new. This can be heard in songs like “Pastime” (Kaeshelle Rianne, 2022) and “Waistcoat” (Hannah Rowe – Topic, 2024). Andreia is extremely successful at doing this, writing raw and emotive songs, focusing on feel rather than overproduction. This will give Andreia the chance to be successful as audiences and fans will be able to connect with her on a deeper emotional level, solidifying the artist and fan relationship. Andreia has a special way of being vulnerable with listeners, writing about her life experiences and giving raw, unedited performances both live and on social media. This openness creates a great sense of intimacy between her and the listener, creating a captivating bond with everyone, whether that’s through a TikTok video from her bedroom, or a live gig at The Wardrobe.
Musical Examples and Analysis
I have chosen three examples of Andreia’s original compositions, and I am going to analyse their sound, and why I believe they could thrive within the developing and shifting music market. At the moment, Andreia is in the early stages of her career, and as of yet has not got any music released (which I will come to discuss later when talking about her next steps and developments). Despite this, Andreia is frequently gigging, playing her own original music as a solo act, performing her songs on her acoustic guitar.
Andreia’s number one mission for when it comes to creating music is that everything she does is “for the soul”. This means that they are songs that come from the heart, embracing vulnerability and sharing the power of being open. She aims to take all of her experiences and the feeling with which they bring and infuse them into her songs. This makes her music resonate deeply with listeners as they are able to tell straight away, that she cares about her art and has a deep passion for what she does. Whether it’s through her poetic and meaningful lyrics, or beautifully haunting chord progressions and harmony, Andreia channels her life through her music, connecting with each and every listener in an emotive and captivating way.
Only Need Me (When It Suits You)
This is one of Andreia’s newest songs and draws upon more traditional acoustic singer-songwriter styles. It is an extremely moving song, with a slower more intimate vibe. It is a great demonstration of Andreia’s song writing abilities, and is a song that many listeners will be able to relate to. In this song she explores the struggles of a relationship, and how unreciprocated love can be detrimental to one’s wellbeing. This powerful message is represented through heartfelt lyrics and the soothing harmony, implementing an open D tuning to really capture the traditional vibe of the style. In this song, we can hear how artists like Lianna La Havas have influenced Andreia. Lianna’s song “Green and Gold” is of a similar vibe to Andreia’s, especially in live performances such as at Sofar Sounds London in 2016 (Sofar Sounds, 2016). The solo singer with acoustic guitar is a very powerful performance method, as it creates a very intimate feel for the audience, creating a strong artist and listener bond. However, Lianna is a much more proficient guitar player than Andreia, meaning that her focus is a lot more on playing, rather than performing and singing. To improve upon this, Andreia could start working with a dedicate guitar player to play the songs live, which will allow her to focus on singing the song and engaging with the audience, creating a more captivating performance. In the studio, I think it’s important that this raw live feel is kept as the main element. The centre of the song would be the acoustic guitar, and we could build around this by adding strings, bass and vocal harmonies to add life and movement to the track. The fundamental goal for this song is less is more, focusing on the beauty of the song’s performance, rather than the production. Inspirations for this track would be “Cherry Wine” by Hozier (HozierVEVO, 2016), in terms of the vocal and guitar live performance feel. Similarly, “Loud” by Olivia Dean is another great example of how the song would be produced, with the moving strings and backing vocals (Olivia Dean, 2025).
Me Myself and I
Me Myself and I is a powerful track that taps into soul and ballad elements, captivating the listener from the outset. The bold, almost cinematic vibes of the song reflect the empowering message conveyed in the lyrics. In this song, Andreia explores the power in loving and trusting in yourself to continue in life, when others around you aren’t supporting you as they should. I am reminded of Raye’s soon to be released song “I Know You’re Hurting”, which shares a similar message of empowerment and self-love. Raye is an extremely successful artist and is an artist that’s had a great influence upon Andreia (BBC Music, 2025). Her huge success clearly shows us that there is still a market for more interesting and well composed music, that strays away from the ultra-modern, high productivity tracks we are so used to today. Raye is a great example of an artist who focuses on the beauty of the song at the core, not relaying on mainstream advanced synths, samples and loops etc, to connect with the listener. This is much like how Andreia writes her music “for the soul”, choosing to embrace the raw humanity of music, as opposed to the modern robotic sound. As a result, we can align Andreia in the same kind of market and target demographic as an artist like Raye. There is clear evidence that people are looking for and connecting with this kind of music, potentially as an escape from the ever-developing modern world in which we live today. We could explore this with Andreia, and how she uses music to communicate with others on a more primal and human level, instead of a technological way; to take a break from modern resources e.g. phones, social media, AI etc. The vision for this track is for it to have a big powerful ballad feel, building from the string/key part played in the live footage. A song like “I See Fire” by Ed Sheeran (Ed Sheeran, 2024) is a great example of the kind of string arrangement Andreia would like in her song, coupled with the horns and guitar riff from Hannah Rowe’s “Alone Together” to get that very dramatic sound (Hannah Rowe – Topic, 2025).
Jaded
Jaded is one of Andreia’s strongest songs, in terms of both message and music. It is one of Andreia’s older songs and has been part of many of her previous projects, which has allowed it to grow and develop into something very special. This song is extremely important to Andreia, as it has allowed her to externalise a haunting experience that she experienced when she was younger, which has caused her extreme pain and horror. The song is full of emotion, and the listener is instantly able to identify the immense feeling that is poured into it. This captivating performance grabs the audience’s attention from the outset, especially when performed with a live band. In 2025, Andreia performed this song with her band “What The Funk” when they headlined The Wardrobe. As well as this, she also performed the song as part of a live session project which featured many talented session players, which further elevated the song to a whole new level. The harmony of the song is simple, with only a 3-chord harmonic progression looping throughout. The magic of the song comes from the wide and expressive use of dynamics and instrumentation. Although the song has little left to be developed, one thing Andreia wishes to do is to change the player on the song. I have done a lot of guitar work for Andreia on her past projects and one problem that continues to arise is the people she has on her projects, and how they are not delivering what she wishes. Off key backing vocals and overplaying are all problems we have faced repeatedly, as these have been the only musicians available to us in a college environment. However now that we have a lot more talented musicians to choose from, we can actively pick and choose who we feel would suit this project best and deliver the result Andreia is looking for.
Developments
Although Andreia is so far doing well as a new artist in the early stages of her career, there are a few points of development that I believe she could put into practise to really help her stand out and thrive in a very saturated industry.
The biggest, and arguably most important improvement Andreia could implement as soon as possible is putting her music out. Right now, she has no music released anywhere, only short clips of live performances across her social medias. Although this is a great method to promote her music and build an audience online, she is promoting something that does not yet even exist. Andreia is a great songwriter and has a special way of writing captivating and emotive songs. She writes songs at home with her acoustic guitar mostly by herself. She has many musical connections through her own networking and through her brothers’ networks, which will be extremely beneficial. The first step to do would be work alongside Andreia to find some producers who she feels bests suits her style, and who she believes can fulfil her vision. Some producers that she knows within her network are Nicholas Guilefoyle, TripleQQQ or Zave. If these producers do not fit her vision however, we could look for others, for example The Dunwells. As well as being a great band and artist themselves, they also offer production and songwriting services. I think that this might potentially be a good match as not only are they based in Leeds, but they also offer a free initial co-writing session so Andreia will be able to get a feel for if she thinks they will be able to fit her vibe.
Andreia sometimes lacks confidence when it comes to her music, which has caused her some difficulties so far in her career. Therefore it would be beneficial to find someone who she feels that she can trust and connect with, to ensure that she is comfortable and happy. Not only will this support her emotional wellbeing, but it will significantly aid the production process. As a result, she may settle for someone that she has previous experience with, oppose to new collaborators. Once she finds a producer she feels is suitable for her, Andreia can begin to create her music. This process will enable her to work with other musicians to develop and enhance her songs. I have worked closely with Andreia in the past as her lead guitarist and musical director and throughout this, I have learnt that she has very clear visions of what she wants, so this is where she will excel. She also has great leadership qualities, so will be successful at explaining what she wants to those involved in the process. I think it would be a good strategy to record four singles and release them monthly over a 4-month period. These songs would be Jaded, Only Need Me (When It Suits You), Me Myself and I and The Interlude. A variety of highly skilled session musicians would be brought into the studio to perform on the songs. In discussions with Andreia, she stated that I would be playing guitar on all her songs and would be part of the writing process. A problem that could occur throughout this production process could again be Andreia’s confidence. In my previous work with Andreia I have found that she has self-doubt sometimes surrounding her work, which leads to discouragement, causing delays in the creative process. This becomes complicated when you are then working with other musicians who have got many other projects going on, as they won’t have the availability to be shifting and postponing things. Therefore it might be a good idea to have someone act as a sort of project manager alongside Andreia, to offer an outside voice from hers. This may then prevent Andreis doubts from halting and disturbing the project.
Once the songs have all been completed to a high standard that Andreia and her collaborating team are happy with, we then need to use a distributor like DistroKid to get her music on to streaming platforms. I think it is very important that she solidifies some sort of presence on DSPs (Digital Streaming Platforms). Streaming is the main way in which music is consumed in 2025 and makes up roughly 69% of the global recorded music market (IFPI, 2025). In 2024 alone, there were over 752 million people using subscription based streaming services (i.e. Spotify, Apple Music etc) (IFPI, 2025).From these statistics, it is clear to see that streaming is a huge market, highlighting the importance of having a presence on these platforms as Andreia’s music will then be accessible to a much wider audience much more easily. This means that her music will be available globally, allowing her to begin to grow fans around the world. These platforms have many statistical analysis tools, which will allow Andreia to see the demographic figures of her music streams. This will enable her to see things like where in the world her music is being played, and by what gender and age range.
This type of data can be extremely useful as it will allow us to plan our next steps for her career development. For example, we can take this data and see how we could use social media to reach the target audience. If there is high interest from 18–24-year-olds listening to her music, we can then use platforms like Instagram and TikTok to try and promote her songs to even more people from this age demographic. Social media is a vital tool for promotion in 2025, with an estimated 5.66 billion people using it, which equates to roughly 70% of the earth’s population (Datareportal, 2025). As previously stated, Andreia is already using social media successfully, posting regular covers featuring friends, as well as sharing original performances. This works very well as it further cements the intimate and raw feel of her identity and style. The low exposure, bedroom recordings create more of a bond between Andreia and the viewer, which will help her when it comes to building a following. If she continues to do this to promote her music on Spotify etc, then hopefully these views will turn into streaming traffic, building up a much larger committed fanbase. This has worked before with artists like Sienna Spiro, whose music and social media approach has influenced Andreia’s (Spiro, 2020). She started out by posting regular covers to her TikTok back in 2022, which quickly gained a lot of attention, amassing a substantial following early on. These followers then turned into fans and streams when she began to release her own music, with songs like “Maybe” and “Die on This Hill” becoming Viral sounds on TikTok. This then allowed her to gain traction on the official charts, breaking her in the UK. She has since gone to grow in America, featuring on The Late Show in June 2025, and having a US tour starting in March 2026. This is proof that this method is feasible and has worked for not only Sienna before, but many other artists too.
Another development point which I think could be really interesting and beneficial to Andreia is forming a live band for her when she is playing shows. Andreia is a great performer when she is playing solo, however she really comes to life when she is singing with a strong band behind her. In here solo shows, she has to accompany herself with her guitar, which Andreia says she finds difficult to trying to execute many things at once e.g. singing, playing, getting the audience engaged. This can sometimes hinder her shows as she looks like she doesn’t feel comfortable and natural on stage, which can break the connection between her and the crowd. Therefore, we will actively pick musicians who both me and Andreia believe will be able to deliver the result we are looking for from this project. We can find these and experiment with chemistry during the recording process and then pick the ones we feel work best for the live band.
Conclusion
In conclusion, I believe that Andreia is a great example of an artist that could potentially have a successful career as an artist in the current developing music industry. Her vibe and style fits that of a shifting market, where we are seeing a shift of people embracing the raw beauty of music. Andreia’s music fits between artists like Raye and Olivia Dean, focusing on writing moving and emotive songs at the centre, instead of relying on modern production i.e., samples and loops, to create interest for the audience. The main steps we now need to focus on for her career development are recording her music and getting it distributed onto DSPs, which she can use social medias like TikTok to promote. This will allow her to amass a wider geographical following. We will also form a live band for her, that will allow her songs to be brought to life in a live setting and will enable her to focus on performing and bonding with her fans.
Bibliography
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Jaded Video Footage courtesy of Paul Watson
Only Need Me (When It Suits You) & Me Myself and I Video Footage courtesy of Gabriela Puz
