Ayo

Joy Olasunmibo Ogunmakinpronunciation (born 14 September 1980), known professionally as Ayọ, is a German singer, songwriter and actress. She uses the Yoruba translation Ayọ or Ayo. of her first name Joy.

Her debut album Joyful, released in 2006, reached Double-Platinum status in France, Platinum in Germany and Poland, and Gold status in Switzerland, Italy, and Greece. Interscope Records released the album in the United States on 20 November 2007.

Born in Frechen near Cologne, Germany, she has a son named Nile, who was born in late 2005 and a daughter named Billie-Eve, born July 2010, with the Sierra Leonian-German reggae singer Patrice, from whom she is now separated. At the end of 2007, she moved with her family to the Greenwich Village section of Manhattan in New York City. Currently, she lives in Brooklyn, New York with her children.

Then-president of UNICEF France, Jacques Hintzy, announced on 4 February 2009 that the singer was named patron of UNICEF to promote the right to education for all children in the world.

The French production company MK2 produced the film Ayo Joy, a 90-minute documentary about the singer and her life, in 2009. The film was directed by Raphaël Duroy.

Ayọ was born in 1980 near Cologne, then in West Germany, as the fourth child of a Nigerian father and a German-Sinti mother. She has one sister and two brothers. When she was about six years old, her mother became addicted to heroin and spent some time in jail. After her parents divorced, she a…