Tolü Makay, born Toluope Makanjuola, is a Irish-Nigerian singer, songwriter, and performer famous for her cover of 'N17' – but she is more than that, describing her sound as “cinematic pop soul,” backed by a stunningly beautiful vocal range.
Her show in Galway last Thursday, part of GIAF 2026, showcased Makay's performing talent and songs from her new EP, People Still Cry In Summer.
Makay has major plans for her upcoming tour this autumn, but “one thing at a time,” she smiles. “You have to play Monroe’s.”
Makay’s path was not linear. After university, she ended up in the corporate world. Six years ago, she left and pursued music full time.
After immigrating from Nigeria when she was five, her family eventually settled in Tullamore, where music was her only outlet for an unnamed sense of otherness.
“I will forever call Tullamore home, in the sense of that’s the first place I felt settled.” But the older she gets, “the more I’m starting to realise how important it is for me to see myself reflected in the society that I’m in.”
Growing up, “all eyes are on me. If I’m walking into the mall, there’s people staring. There’s no hiding. There’s no secrecy or having some space of being vulnerable, no safety within those contexts.”
Being black in Tullamore means being “extremely visible… constantly micromanaging yourself. It’s exhausting,” says Makay, candidly. “My songs are because I’ve had to empower myself. I’ve had to give myself that courage.”
None of her family lives in Tullamore anymore; that chapter appears to be closing. “I’ve been on this search of finding my own tribe, or my own community, whatever that means.”
Makay loves being in Nigeria. “I miss Nigeria so much. That’s another home. I feel like I have different homes in different places.” Lagos “is a lot, it’s intense, but it’s beautiful, it’s rich in culture.”
But being part of the diaspora means a level of remove from the living place. “You have frozen it in time in your own memory, but everyone else is moving, evolving, changing.” The place is both the same and not the same, creating a “different culture shock.”
In Galway, university was a place of metamorphosis, where Makay discovered a love of philosophy. “It just opened a whole new world." Growing up very religious, she had not been allowed that kind of questioning. If the 29-year-old had not taken those classes, “I genuinely think I would be married, maybe three, four, kids, who knows. I wouldn’t be the singer that I am today.”
At one point, Makay was on that trajectory. “I had a whole boyfriend, met his family, traditional Nigerian, like – that was where it was going to go. I thank God last year was a whole awakening.”
“You know the way people go through midlife crisis? I think I had mine super early, like multiple times throughout my 20s. I'm like, oh my God, who even am I? I need to change. And I feel like everyone evolves and grows in their own time.
“But I think being open and having critical thinking is probably one of the best ways to just get there a bit faster in terms of allowing yourself to dream more or bigger or just envision more for yourself from whatever you've been brought up in.
“Especially for women. And your dream can be whatever it wants to be. I think for me, what I've learned is that as long as you don't lose yourself – I think that's my fear.”
Playing at Monroe’s, Makay showed up entirely as herself. Her stage performance was strikingly intimate, a portrait of a woman picking out her own path.
When she saw the largely older crowd, she knew she had to play the Saw Doctors’ 'N17'. But it is not representative of her repertoire, even if it has the most name recognition after a viral RTÉ performance in 2020.
When she moved to London, she wanted to feel like “a small fish in a big pond.”
“I feel like I’m itching, and searching for more,” she says.
“Before, music was a way for me to just release. But now I want to live an exciting life to inform the kind of music I’m doing. I'm thinking about it so differently now. But it's really exciting in a really bizarre way.”
So what is next? For now, the tour.
But, “in the back of my head somewhere, New York is calling.” There’s a freedom of expression there, she says, that is magnetic.
“I feel like that’s kind of maybe what I’m searching for, or what’s tugging at my heart strings a bit.”
Tolü Makay tours Ireland from October 1 to November 27. Tickets from www.tolumakayofficial.com
