Adaeze Music

Biography

Adaeze [pronounced “uh-daisy”… like a flower] is one unique young lady.

Born in London, England along with her three older brothers, she was brought up in a healthy Christian home by her loving parents. By the time she was 2 years old, her family moved to Tulsa, OK, which is where Adaeze discovered her love of music from a very young age. Inspired by her oldest brother Zo to begin playing piano, Adaeze also began writing songs. Her first song she wrote was entitled “Eternity,” the title track for her new debut album that released November 21, 2008.

Even from when she was a child, her love for God burned deep, as the chorus of her first song stated her life goal: “I want my life to count for eternity. I want to hear You say to me, ‘Well done. You’ve been My servant good and faithfully. Now come, spend eternity with Me.’”It didn’t take long for Adaeze to realize that music was her passion.

She continued writing music that God gave her; and as her family moved to Lexington, KY after her freshman year of high school, she began recording with two of her older brothers, Zo and Jay. In her early high school years, she recorded over 70 of her songs, all of which she wrote herself, with her brothers making her music. Using them to perform, Adaeze began to realize her dream of making an album and using this gift God had given her to further His Kingdom.

When she got a scholarship to play basketball at a Division 1 university in Tennessee, she jumped at the opportunity. However, through a variety of circumstances, God gently showed her that her basketball dreams had too long been the center of her life, coming before her relationship with God. “Sometimes our plans and dreams aren’t the same as God’s plans and dreams for us,” Adaeze has said. “And God knows best. I had to reevaluate my life and prioritize everything. It was a very interesting time in my little comfortable world.” She walked away from the game of basketball after her freshman year of college, and moved back to Lexington. There, she surrendered her future “to the One Who sees the big picture. Apparently, basketball wasn’t my passion, or God’s plan for me. Music was.” Good thing too, because her voice and song-writing would have been a terrible thing to waste and be sidelined behind her love of basketball. “I realized that basketball wasn’t everything… and it had been all my life. All of my brothers played basketball from kindergarten; so did I.” One of her brothers, Kelenna, is even in the NBA, playing with the New York Knicks (#17).

In her heart, Adaeze knew that she was making the right choice going with music. Her true passion is praise and worship; once she moved back to Lexington and transferred to University of Kentucky, she was already helping lead praise and worship for the college ministry at her home church, Southland Christian Church. She also began leading praise and worship for the University of Kentucky’s Christian Student Fellowship. She started recording with a couple of her good friends who had recording booths for closets; those same friends later formed a band called the Field Goal Unit. When the Field Goal Unit came out with their debut album, The Kickoff, Adaeze says it was like a wakeup call. “It was like God was saying to me, ‘Hellooooo! What are you waiting for? You should be recording for your album too!’ I didn’t need much else to start my recording process, to say the least.” And so began the road to Eternity, her very first album. Her brother Jay had still been making music, and provided all but two tracks’ music on the album. The other two were provided by the Field Goal Unit’s members, AJ Hochhalter and Blake Morris. Adaeze wrote all the songs, except for “Stay,” which she co-wrote with her brother Jay "A-X" Azubuike, and “You Have Everything,” co-written with AJ and Blake. “Turn Around” and “Resisting Temptation” were written with her good friend Clayton York, who appears as a special guest on those same tracks. Having recorded the entire album in closets-made-into-recording-booths, Adaeze also produced the album. All of this was done within a span of one month. God sure does know what He’s doing when He changes plans. Now Adaeze dreams bigger than she ever has, knowing that she sings for the God Who can do exceedingly and abundantly more than we can ask or think (Ephesians 3:20), as she sings in her song “I Can Do Anything.”