Andrea Landis, commonly known by her stage name Nylo, is an American singer, songwriter, musician and record producer from Chicago, Illinois.[1]
Landis was born and raised in Chicago.[1] She began singing after being influenced by the singers at her Methodist church, and was also inspired by her father's liking of singers Stevie Nicks, Whitney Houston and Madonna.[1] She learned piano at church, and received her first piano at age 16.[1] When her parents divorced, Landis moved with her mother to Texas,[1] and she dropped out of high school before her senior year.[1] She began performing open mic shows, while also learning music production with the digital audio workstation Reason.[1] She began shadowing at a studio after someone found her at an open mic show and wanted to record some of her material.[1]
Through a friend, Landis found out about an available part of a play in Los Angeles.[1] She won the part and performed in the play for 13 weeks.[1] She then began writing for other artists, but decided to write songs for herself, stating: "That was the number one thing I found: All these people would come in and they had a great voice or something about them was special, but they had nothing to say. I was like 'I'm not doing this anymore. If I'm going to write these songs 100%, I might as well just release them. These people don't care what they're saying.'"[1]
After turning down offers from studios and record labels, Landis began working on her debut extended play, Memories Speak, released in 2012.[1] Landis signed to Epic Records two months after Memories Speak was released.[1] Landis was then discovered by Chicago-based blog Fake Shore Drive, which in turn led Chicago producer J. Hill to sample the Memories Speak song "Someone Like You" in an instrumental; the instrumental was subsequently used for a Mac Miller song of the same name, and was featured on Miller's second studio album, Watching Movies with the Sound Off (2013).[1] Memories Speak also received endorsement from rapper Nas.[2] In mid-2013, Landis claimed to be working on her debut studio album.[3]
On April 9, 2020, Landis released a music video of a new song, "A History of Sorry", consisting of footage taken during the COVID-19 quarantine.[4] The song is included on her EP, A Brief History of Sorry, released on May 8, 2020.[5]