Afra Kane is used to hearing the word “no.”
Fortunately for the Italian-born singer-songwriter, she’s also used to ignoring it.
Kane’s musical journey has been a practice in taking the path less traveled. A classically trained pianist with a love of Motown and jazz, her current work as a singer-songwriter reflects the sum of her influences.
Kane will make a stop in Lancaster on her first American tour next week. She performs a free show at Tellus360 on Wednesday.
Kane, 24, is of Nigerian descent and was born and raised in Italy. She lived in Portsmouth, England, for a year before moving to Cardiff, Wales, and Switzerland, where she still resides.
She took up piano at age 8 at the encouragement of her mother, who wanted her to perform in their Baptist church. Kane focused on classical music, but found herself connecting with composers like Tchaikovsky and Chopin more than Mozart and Beethoven.
All the while, she was soaking in American rhythm and blues and soul. She loved Alicia Keys, and started teaching herself Keys’ songs by ear. Inspired by Keys’ songwriting, she began to try composing her own songs.
A few years later, as a teenager, she worked up the confidence to show her piano teacher one of her original compositions. She was met by a lack of support.
“He was like, yeah, you shouldn’t waste your time composing,” Kane says. “Just focus on practicing Mozart and Beethoven.”
Fortunately, Kane took his advice with a grain of salt.
“I was like, wow, OK,” Kane says. “Let me just go write songs then instead. … I guess he inspired me to do what I’m currently doing, because I felt that I wasn’t good enough at writing, composing for piano. And he sort of made me discover this other side to me as well.”
At 16 or 17, Kane started gigging with a friend and a band. She dove into American jazz, soaking up the repertoires of Ella Fitzgerald and Peggy Lee, and performing Motown and soul hits from Aretha Franklin, Marvin Gaye and Al Green.
Performing with the band, however, brought Kane to yet another “no” that she’d defy. She wanted to play piano and sing at the same time, like Keys.
“The band I was with was kind of, ‘Oh, no one wants to see a singer sitting down,’ ” Kane says. “I was like, excuse me? What about Stevie Wonder? What about Alicia Keys? What about Ray Charles? What about Aretha Franklin? What about Nina Simone? That’s such a wack excuse. So then, when I moved to Switzerland, I was like, OK. Now no one can tell me anything.”
Now, she’s grown as both a performer — and person — to know her instincts were right. Now, her classical, jazz and Motown influences live in harmony, evident on her debut EP “Scorpio,” released earlier this year.
The album landed her a spot in the Montreaux Jazz Festival earlier this year, where she won the top prize for a solo performer.
“That was definitely amazing, and unexpected as well,” Kane says.
The six-song EP is a no-frills affair, letting Kane’s velvety, powerful voice take center stage. It ends with the contemplative track “(Expletive) Up Mind, Beautiful Soul,” which is about fighting mental health stigma.
“You can’t judge someone who is telling you how they’re feeling, because you don’t know what the person is going through,” Kane says.
She’s excited to share the songs from “Scorpio” during her first U.S. tour.
“It’s always been on my bucket list,” Kane says. “It’s always been a dream of mine. Obviously, a lot of my influences are American, and I just hope to connect with a new audience, which I hope will be able to understand the genre, since it’s inspired by genres that were born in the U.S.”
Now that her music is about to take her across the ocean, she’s even more glad she didn’t take all those “nos” for an answer.
“Deep in my heart, I know that I have a talent and, I don’t know, I guess people are always going to try to project their fears on you and stuff,” Kane says. “Being an artist is just a matter of carrying through no matter what people say.”