Born in San Diego, California, and raised in St. Louis, Missouri, to a Ugandan father and a Sicilian mother, bassist, composer and singer TONINA is a melting pot of cultures and musical influences. Her sense of rhythm, melody and her extraordinary interpretation of the voice and the song make her performances an exciting experience for all listeners.
As a singer, it has been a long time since we heard a voice with so much personality and uniqueness connected to Billie Holiday’s vocal wound in a different tone, yes, but with all the pain that Lady Day expressed in her songs. Something magical. As a bassist, she could be seen as the right replacement for predecessors such as Esperanza Spalding.
Indeed, in Tonina’s voice, we discover all the words and songs of tomorrow, because this prodigious and very young artist has the heart to beat and feel any music, whether classical, jazz, Latin, or African.
Tonina is already destined to become one of the great women of popular music of our time.
