| Alysha Brilla | |
| Birth Name: | Alysha Mohamed |
| Birth Date: | 3 November 1988 |
| Birth Place: | Mississauga, Ontario, Canada |
| Origin: | Kitchener, Ontario, Canada |
| Label: | Lava Universal Republic Records Sunny Jam |
Alysha Brilla (born Alysha Mohamed on November 3, 1988) is a Canadian musician, songwriter, and music producer. Brilla's music career includes festival performances at WOMAD, Woodford Folk and Montreal Jazz. Her music focuses on themes of connection and healing. Born in Mississauga, Ontario and raised in Brampton, Ontario, she started singing in her early teens in local bands and at festivals. In 2010, she signed a major record deal at Lava/Universal Republic Records.[1] Brilla has since released all of her music independently on her own music label, Sunny Jam Records. Brilla has received three Juno Award nominations for her self-produced albums.
Brilla was born in Mississauga, Ontario to a European-Canadian mother and an Indo-Tanzanian father of Khoja descent. Growing up in a mixed-race, mixed-religious household fostered dialectical discussions around race, religion, value systems and ideals. Brilla's father played guitar while growing up in Tanzania and her mother was an avid storyteller. Brilla experienced bullying in middle school and she cites music and nature as her coping mechanism.
She dropped out of school and on her 14th birthday, Brilla was given her father's acoustic guitar and she began teaching herself to play before returning to and eventually graduating high school, before moving to Toronto.
Jacksoul keyboardist and producer Ron Lopata and friend Brad Marshall introduced Brilla's eleven-song EP demo Got Soul to industry attention.
On July 26, 2015, in Kitchener-Waterloo, Ontario, Brilla along with sisters Tameera and Nadia were pulled over by Waterloo Regional Police for bicycle riding topless, with the officer oblivious to the Ontario mandated female right to topless freedom.[2] The sisters then subsequently organized and held a rally at Waterloo Town Square, under the "Bare With Us" banner, to educate the public about the female topless freedom right with Gwen Jacob, the central defendant in the Supreme Court case of R. v. Jacob making an appearance.[3] [4]
She composed music for Fawzia Mirza's 2023 film The Queen of My Dreams.
| Year | Album | |
|---|---|---|
| 2012 | Brilla | |
| 2013 | In My Head | |
| 2014 | Woman | |
| 2016 | Human | |
| 2017 | Rooted | |
| 2022 | Circle |