The Music Beat: In a digital world, this Hoo is loyal to vinyl

November 19, 2025
Omonye Isi sitting in her living room in front of a vintage Hi-Fi with several vinyl records on the coffee table.

Omonye Isi says music was everywhere as she grew up in Nigeria. That love of sound inspired her to start a record collection in college that has grown over the years. (Photo by Lathan Goumas, University Communications)

When it comes to setting records, Omonye Isi prefers classic vinyl.

Isi first joined the University of Virginia’s staff as a clinical research coordinator in the Emily Couric Clinical Cancer Center in 2023. A year later, when she was admitted to a master’s degree program in public health, she stopped commuting from Richmond and moved to Charlottesville.

Isi sitting in front of a Billie Holiday poster.

Aside from being a big music lover, Isi is pursuing a master’s in public health and working at the UVA Cancer Center. (Photo by Lathan Goumas, University Communications)

She brought with her a collection of nearly 150 records that she holds dear. She spoke with UVA Today about building the collection, what music means to her and her favorite records.

Q. What do you do at UVA?

A. My job mostly revolves around screening patients to see if they qualify for clinical research, recruiting and enrolling them into clinical trials, and following them through their cycles of treatment. 

Seeing how vulnerable populations are underrepresented in clinical research inspired a passion for public health. I’m really happy that I get to work in a field where I can practice day-to-day what I’m going to school for.

Q. How did you come to start your record collection?

A. From a young age, I’ve always really enjoyed music. My mom is a classically trained musician who plays the clarinet, so I heard a lot of classical music growing up. 

As I grew older, I started gravitating toward female vocalists like Dinah Washington, Ella Fitzgerald and Sarah Vaughan, maybe because my mom’s also a vocalist. When I started playing the clarinet, I decided to learn more about instrumental jazz and discovered people like Benny Goodman, John Coltrane and Miles Davis.

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When I started college, I happened upon a physical record of an album I listened to a lot, and from there I was hooked. My earliest records were the original soundtrack for the opera “Porgy and Bess,” a Diana Ross record and a Miriam Makeba one.

I wouldn’t say that I have a huge collection. At this point, there are about 150 in total, including about 60 shellac records.

Most of my collection is jazz records. I love the bebop and hard bop eras – musicians like Charles Mingus and Charlie Parker. I also love spiritual jazz musicians like Pharoah Sanders, Alice Coltrane and Sun Ra. I also have music from Nigeria’s early post-independence period, including Fela Kuti, the Lijadu Sisters and Babatunde Olatunji.

Q. Are you musical yourself?

A. Very. I started singing in the church as a little girl. I’m Nigerian and I feel like Nigeria is a very musical place. Children are always singing outside; mothers are always singing. My parents are always humming a tune. When I was a little older, maybe 8 or 9, my parents got me a clarinet and my little sister a violin.

Moving to the United States, music was one of the things that made me more comfortable expressing myself. In high school, I was a shy kid experiencing culture shock and trying to adjust to everything. The only extracurricular activity I did was chamber choir, which really helped ground me. Through music, I was able to find myself because I felt connected to things I was discovering. I would go to the library and read biographies of Nina Simone, Grace Jones and other prominent figures in music.

Q. What makes you gravitate toward records over digital listening?

A. First of all, the sound is very different. There’s a grittiness to it. I also feel like, in this digital era, there’s still value in holding something tangible and going through the physical motion of placing and playing the record. It makes me feel more connected to the sound, if that makes sense, because these are going to move with me forever

a group of vinyl records in sleeves on a coffee table from ‘Mingus’, ‘Pharoah Sanders’, and ‘the Lijadu Sisters’.

Omonye’s favorite artists include Lijadu Sisters, Sarah Vaughan and Diana Ross. (Photo by Lathan Goumas, University Communications)

I could easily just play a song on my phone. but knowing that I have physical copies of songs that mean a lot to me is really special, because these are records that mean a lot to me.

I also love looking at the album artwork. Most of my records are from the ’60s and ’70s, in that era of really interesting and abstract artwork. I find a lot of beauty in that.

Q. Where do you usually shop for records?

A. I think antique stores are the best places to get records. Charlottesville has a good collection of antique shops and record stores on the Downtown Mall that have a nice selection. I’ve found some great shellac records, the older kind that I can play with my older Victrola.

Q. Tell me about your record players.

A. I have two Victrola record players. I bought one online that also plays CDs, because I have a few of those. The other one I got on Facebook Marketplace. It’s from 1915, so it’s not powered by electricity, and I have to crank it. It’s one of my favorite antique finds. It also came with a few original records from icons like Mamie Smith, Bessie Smith and Duke Ellington. Mamie Smith is the first Black woman to release a blues record, and having a piece of that history is pretty cool.

Media Contacts

Zeina Mohammed

University News Associate University Communications

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