Ahya Simone facts for kids

Ahya Simone, a talented artist

Ahya Simone was born on September 4, 1992, and is an American artist who works in many different creative fields. She lives in Detroit, Michigan. Ahya Simone is most famous for playing the harp and for creating and starring in a web series called Femme Queen Chronicles.

Early Life and Learning

Ahya Simone grew up in Detroit, Michigan. She started singing in her church choir when she was young. When she was 16, she began playing the harp while attending Cass Technical High School.

Later, while studying at Wayne State University, she shared that she is a transgender woman. During her time at the university, she was the main harpist for the school's symphony orchestra.

Her Career

Music

After college, Ahya Simone wanted to perform music in new ways, beyond just classical music. She started playing r&b and soul songs. She has said that famous harpists like Dorothy Ashby and Alice Coltrane were big inspirations for her.

This led her to work with another artist from Detroit, dream hampton. Together, they created the music for hampton's short film Treasure in 2018. In the same year, Ahya Simone received a special award called a Kresge Artist Fellowship. She was the first Black transgender woman to receive this award. Also in 2018, she worked with the musician Kelela on her album Take Me a_Part, the Remixes.

Besides playing the harp, Ahya Simone is also a singer and songwriter. Her music mixes different styles like r&b, jazz, experimental, and electronic sounds. She released a song called "Frostbite" in 2020. Later, she made a music video for "Frostbite" that featured other local artists. In 2021, she worked with cktrl on his song "mazes".

Here are some songs Ahya Simone has released:

• "Frostbite" (released June 2020)
• "Liminal" featuring Tapiwa Svosve (released December 31, 2024)

Other Creative Work

In 2015, Ahya Simone helped start the Trans Sistas of Color Project Detroit. This group offers support to transgender women of color. Through this organization, she launched a comedy web series pilot called Femme Queen Chronicles. The show is about four transgender women living in Detroit. Ahya Simone has compared it to other TV shows like Living Single and Chewing Gum.

Ahya Simone created the series to show positive stories about Black transgender people. She is the director, writer, and also stars in the show. Femme Queen Chronicles first came out in 2018 and was very well-received. She received money from the Knight Foundation to help make the series. As of 2021, she is working with Janet Mock to turn the show into a television series.