Life has a way of throwing curveballs. One moment, you’re on a charted path, and the next, you’re experiencing something much differently than planned.
For Artist Support Grantee Mayia Warren, the path to becoming a musician and advocate did not follow the neat arc of a storybook. “Being an artist was not my plan. I did not see it coming,” she said. Growing up, she sang, wrote songs, and played guitar for more than twelve years, but she considered those creative gifts. Her focus was a doctorate in physical therapy and a future clinic in High Point.
Everything shifted in her last year of college. “I felt like God was calling me to leave that behind, which was really hard, because that had a level of certainty to it, and the pivot to disability advocacy did not.” She had been advocating since the eighth grade, but stepping into it fully was an entirely different leap.
In 2021 she released a song and tagged the Invisible Disabilities Association. “The mission of this organization registered so deeply with me,” she said. As someone who is legally blind and living with multiple chronic conditions, she felt seen. By January 2022 she had been invited to become an ambassador. Still, she did not see herself as an artist. Not yet.
That changed as mentors, now her adoptive family, helped connect her with a sound engineer who had spent twenty years in Christian hip hop. She had songs. She had a story. And she had something she needed to say. In 2023 she finally felt it take shape. “I fully began to lean in and realized, oh, this is not a fluke, this is what God is calling me to do.”
Her work blends neo soul, R and B, and gospel, with jazz shaping the edges. “Orchestral instrumentation has a way of pulling out some of those vulnerabilities,” she explained. Her song Unraveling emerged from a season of learning to let go of old armor and trust her community. Better Not Bitter came from a collision of health challenges and childhood trauma. “I just want to be better,” she said, “and I know that means I cannot bypass the healing process.”
With support from an Artist Support Grant from The ACGG, she was able to move her newest project forward. “The biggest cost is sound engineering or mixing and mastering,” she said. “You can have the best song, but it could sound awful and not fit for radio, distribution, or anything, because you did not invest enough money into that.” The grant covered half the cost of production for her upcoming singles and full album. The grant also supported promotional work and a photography shoot at a local church, which ties directly into the project’s concept.
Her third album, Take Me Back, arrives in April 2026. “It is basically a series of songs that have been written inspired by hymns,” she said. She is rolling out visuals gradually and preparing for an album release event that same month. Updates and announcements can be found at MayiaWarren.org. Make sure to join her newsletter so you can follow along with the journey!
