Aza

AZA is a Neo fusion artist and multi-instrumentalist who is deeply rooted in music from the African Diaspora. He grew up listening to gospel, reggae, soca, hip hop, blues, soul, and jazz and all of these genres have had a profound influence on the development of his musical style.

He was fortunate to not only develop a unique ear for mixing elements of different genres together, but to also have a firm foundation in music theory as well as formal studies of jazz, gospel, and hip hop music in college. He has been a professional musician for over 15 years and has performed at venues such as Jazz at the Lincoln Center, Arts at the Armory, Regattabar, The Middle East, and Jazzy’s Cabaret. He is the co-founder of Renaissance Entertainment, LLC a company aimed at combining art, science, and community building to create a more conscious and empathic culture.

AZA received his B.S. in Biology from North Carolina Central University where he also received minors in Philosophy and Jazz studies for piano and vocal performance. He then studied in the MD/PhD program at Harvard Medical School, finishing his PhD in Neuroscience at MIT in 2016 and his MD in 2019. As a PhD student he was awarded MIT’s Emerson Scholarship to study piano at Berklee College of Music. He completed a clinical residency in the Department of Psychiatry at Yale University and is currently on the faculty at Yale and Howard University where he leads the AZA Lab and the Center for Collective Healing. He studies how social information is computed in the brain and how music, mindfulness, and psychedelics enhance social connections.