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Zee Avi (born Izyan Alirahman in 1986) is a Malaysian singer-songwriter, guitarist, and ukulele player. She was born in Miri, Sarawak, on the island of Borneo. She moved to Kuala Lumpur when she was 12.

Avi posted a video of her first song on YouTube for one of her friends who had missed her first performance in Kuala Lumpur. The friend convinced Avi to leave the video online even after he had seen it, and soon she received positive feedback. This inspired her to put more videos on YouTube. After being featured on the main page of YouTube, she was discovered by Patrick Keeler of The Raconteurs, who passed the link to Ian Montone, the manager of The White Stripes, The Shins, The Raconteurs, and others. Montone passed her music on to Emmett Malloy, who signed her to Brushfire Records, a record company which is partly owned by Jack Johnson.

Her song "No Christmas For Me" is featured on Brushfire Records's 2008 Christmas album This Warm December: A Brushfire Holiday. Her single "Bitter Heart" was first to become available on the US iTunes store, and her full self-titled debut album was released on May 19, 2009, co-produced by Brushfire Records and Ian Montone's Monotone Records.

On the day of her album's release, YouTube featured her on the front page in Spotlight: Music Tuesday. From June–August 2009, she toured the United States with Pete Yorn. The final concert on her first U.S. tour was at the Music Box at the Henry Fonda Theater in Hollywood, California on August 27, 2009.

Avi's song "Monte" was featured in the second season finale of Private Practice.

Zee Avi (2009) Her debut album hit #130 US Billboard Hot 200 Chart and #2 US Billboard Top Heatseekers Chart, and sold 6,000 copies in the United States in its first 2 weeks of release(as of June 9, 2009) according to Nielsen SoundScan.
Her first single Bitter Heart spent 3 weeks on Japan's Top 100 Singles chart. It entered the chart at #82 and peaked at #63, where it stayed for 2 weeks.