Julia Nunes

Julia Nunes is a songwriter and performer who managed to parlay her online popularity into a successful career as an independent musician. She was a freshman in college when she started making simple videos of herself performing songs accompanied by her ukulele playing, and became an unexpected success when her spare but clever covers of popular songs attracted a large fan base. As Nunes' reputation grew, she also found that listeners wanted more of her original numbers, which were often intensely personal in nature, and 2007's Left Right Wrong found her baring her soul, usually with only her acoustic guitar as backing and songs that were always incisive and sometimes playful. Her third album, 2012's Settle Down, boasted a more sophisticated production, with occasional vocal and instrumental overdubs over the material, and by the time she released the EP Ughwow in 2019, the organic and folkie sound of her early videos gave way to cooler, idiosyncratic electronic pop with R&B influences that reflected a new and darker emotional and creative maturity in her music. Nunes was also an example of an independent artist calling the shots in her career as she released her own music, used crowdfunding to finance her work, and controlled her own social media presence.

Julia Nunes was born in Fairport, New York on January 3, 1989. Her father was a lawyer who wrote and performed music for children on the side, and both of her parents encouraged her youthful interest in music. Nunes started taking piano lessons when she was seven years old, and soon added guitar and melodica to her repertoire