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All Music Guide:
The whimsical, jazzy singer/songwriter Izyan Allrahman, better known as Zee Avi, landed her first record deal thanks to the buzz generated by her YouTube channel. Avi was born in Borneo in 1986. She moved to Kuala Lumpur when she was 12 years old, and started playing the guitar when she was 17. After completing her studies in fashion design at the American InterContinental University in London, England, at the age of 21, she returned to Kuala Lumpur and started playing live gigs around town. When one of her friends couldn't attend one of her shows, Avi made a recording of the performance and posted it on YouTube. This marked the beginning of Avi's YouTube career; the video garnered some positive feedback, and Avi went on to post more and more videos. Singer/songwriter Kris Rowley stumbled across one of her videos soon after she started posting; Rowley took a liking to the videos, and in turn started posting Avi's clips on his YouTube channel. The buzz just kept growing over the course of the next year; by the time she posted the song "No Christmas for Me" on her channel (this was her self-proclaimed "last video" on YouTube), Avi found herself swamped with offers from interested record labels. Among these was an e-mail from Monotone Records' Ian Montone, who had discovered Avi's YouTube recordings by way of Patrick Keeler, drummer for the Raconteurs. Avi signed with Monotone Records/Brushfire before 2008 was out; her self-titled debut album was released on that label in the spring of 2009.
Wikipedia:
Zee Avi (born Izyan Alirahman, also known as KokoKaina; b. 1985) is a Malaysian singer-songwriter, guitarist, and ukulele player. She was born in Miri, Sarawak, Malaysia. She moved to Kuala Lumpur when she was 12. She studied fashion design at American InterContinental University in London.
In September 2007 Avi posted a video of her first song on YouTube for one of her friends who had missed her first performance in Kuala Lumpur. The friend convinced Avi to leave the video online even after he had seen it, and soon she received positive feedback. This inspired her to put more videos on YouTube. After being featured on the main page of YouTube, she was discovered by Patrick Keeler of The Raconteurs, who passed the link to Ian Montone, the manager of The White Stripes, The Shins, The Raconteurs, and others. Montone passed her music on to Emmett Malloy, who signed her to Brushfire Records, a record company which is partly owned by Jack Johnson. Her song "No Christmas For Me" is featured on Brushfire Records's 2008 Christmas album This Warm December: A Brushfire Holiday. Her single "Bitter Heart" was first to become available on the US iTunes store, and her full self-titled debut album was released on May 19, 2009, co-produced by Brushfire Records and Ian Montone's Monotone Records. On the day of her album's release, YouTube featured her on the front page in Spotlight: Music Tuesday. From June–August 2009, she toured the United States with Pete Yorn. The final concert on her first U.S. tour was at the Music Box at the Henry Fonda Theater in Hollywood, California on August 27, 2009.
Avi's song "Monte" was featured in the second season finale of Private Practice. Her song "Concrete Wall", was featured in episode 11, season five of Gossip Girl.
Avi has recently released her debut EP, One More Time With Colors, on July 20. The four song EP includes the new never released before song “I Wish I Never” as well as three remixes of tracks from her debut album, Zee Avi.
