Ayah Marar

Ayah Marar first reached mainstream audiences through her contribution to Calvin Harris’s 2013 single “Thinking About You,” although she had already built a solid reputation by issuing her own solo album and appearing on dozens of other artists’ tracks. Born Laura Ayah Marar on September 20, 1980, in Amman, Jordan, she absorbed soul, R&B, hip-hop, and reggae while growing up. At eighteen she relocated to the U.K. to enroll in music studies at Warwick University, where she immersed herself in the drum’n’bass community by promoting her own club events. After settling in London she took a position at a record shop and launched the short-lived imprint Lucky Devil.

Her breakthrough performance arrived in 2003 when she co-wrote and sang on Loxy & Ink’s “Dance Child.” A string of further drum’n’bass partnerships followed before she gravitated toward the emerging grime and bass scenes, linking up with DJ Fresh, Toddla T, and Calvin Harris, with whom she shared a brief residence. She supplied uncredited vocals on three songs from Harris’s 2007 debut album, I Created Disco.

In 2012 Marar issued her first solo single, the super-funky “Mind Controller,” on her freshly formed independent label Hussle Girl, which Universal handled for distribution. The track quickly amassed more than a quarter-million YouTube views. Additional releases included the frantic drum’n’bass rush “The Raver” and the slinky “Lethal Dose.” That October she unveiled her debut album, The Real, which wove together various strands of electronic music beneath the broad banner of bass music.