Ay was the penultimate Pharaoh of Ancient Egypt's 18th dynasty. He held the throne of Egypt for a brief four-year period (probably 1324 – 1320 BC or 1327 – 1323 BC, depending on which chronology is followed), although he was a close advisor to two and perhaps three of the pharaohs who ruled before him and was the power behind the throne during Tutankhamun's reign. Ay's prenomen or royal name—Kheperkheperure—means "Everlasting are the Manifestations of Ra" while his birth name Ay it-hetjer reads as 'Ay, Father of the God.' During the reign of Tutankhamun he almost certainly was one of the major figures responsible for returning the country to the worship of the late Egyptian pantheon of deities after the experiment with monotheism under Akhenaten that abandoned the earlier tradition. Records and monuments that can be attributed fully to Ay are rare, not just because of the short length of his reign, but because his successor, Horemheb, instigated a campaign of damnatio memoriae against him and other pharaohs directly associated with the Amarna period. Some scholars believe that he may have been responsible for Tutankhamun's demise.

Ayọ (born as Joy Olasunmibo Ogunmakin on 14 September 1980 near Cologne, Germany) is an Afro-German singer-songwriter. She uses the Yoruba translation Ayọ or Ayo. of her first name Joy. The name has to be written with a dot below or behind the o – without it, it would refer to a pitted board game popular among the Yorubas.

Her debut album Joyful, which was first released in 2006, reached Double-Platinum status in France, Platinum in Germany and Poland, Gold status in Switzerland and Italy. The album was released in the United States on 20 November 2007 by Interscope Records.

She has a son Nile, who was born in late 2005 with her boyfriend the Afro-German reggae singer Patrice. End of 2007 she moved with her family to the West Village, Manhattan, New York City.