Annika Vitolo Takes It to the Streets

From BAM to Broadway, Annika Vitolo’s parents exposed her to a variety of cultural venues, but her favorite musical moments while growing up in Brooklyn took place on the streets of the borough’s neighborhoods. “I loved listening to the man playing violin for spare change on the corner…the band playing in the park with the Verrazano Bridge lit up in the background,” she says. “These multi-sensory experiences fused the music with the city’s landscape and made the biggest impression on me.” They ultimately inspired her to sit down at the piano and start composing.

Although Annika considers herself primarily a songwriter, she recognized the need to perform her own material in hopes that some established recording artists would “stumble across my songs and want to cover them. I figured I’d ‘pitch’ my songs to the public online.” So Annika went to Rockgarden Studio in Greenpoint where she and producer Dean Bohana created the EP No Sleep ‘Til Brooklyn. Her video of the EP’s breakout song, Streets of Brooklyn, has garnered some 130,000 views on YouTube since its release last year. A stirring love song to our fair borough accompanied by evocative and iconic neighborhood images,Streets of Brooklyn has proven especially popular among homesick Brooklyn expatriates.

Annika took the YouTube route because her songs could potentially be heard by thousands across the country “without my having to leave my house. With the busy life I lead,” says the wife and mother of three, “that made more sense than playing live gigs,” Happily for her fellow Brooklynites, respectable early sales on iTunes led to her being asked to perform in public. She recently made her live debut at Bayfest in her “home town” of Sheepshead Bay. “My kids were especially excited to see their mom onstage!”

She believe that living in Brooklyn gives her and other artists who call the borough home a leg up on the competition, because, “You learn to be tough and resilient, you rise above being told you suck, and you don’t let others’ opinions define who you are or what you should or shouldn’t be. Brooklyn breeds underdogs and more than talent, image, money or luck, you need a fighting spirit to go after your dreams. What Brooklyn’s got more of than any other place on this planet is attitude — and that’s what can light a fire under your ass and make you believe in yourself.“ This Brooklyn-bred self-confidence, she adds, “is ultimately what separates the dreamers from the doers.”

Although Annika is rightfully proud of her own compositions, she’d love to go back in time and take credit for Carole King and Gerry Goffin’s  (You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman. It’s soulful. Timeless. There’s a reason why it’s been covered by so many great artists over the years.” And, she adds blissfully, “I’m so blessed to have someone in my life that makes me feel that way!”