Uwade: “I was determined to transcend popular opinion”

In the music video for ​‘Harmattan’, Uwade’s latest single from her upcoming debut album Florilegium, the Nigerian-born, North Carolina-raised singer dances at the golden hour in sandy, open desert plains. With zero signs of civilisation around, it could be anywhere ­– southern USA, West Africa, or beyond – but in reality, its location doesn’t matter.

It’s that exact sense of placelessness that makes Uwade’s music so enticing. The song itself features highlife-influenced percussion over a soft guitar melody. It’s easy to hear the West African sounds that her father would play to her in the car, as well as the indie folk of Fleet Foxes, who she supported on tour as well as providing the opening vocals for their 2020 album Shore.

In anticipation of the release of her first full length project, and to find out what drove Uwade to become the singer that she is today, we asked her: ​“What made you?”

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When I was about five years old, one of our school assignments was to answer what we wanted to be when we grew up. I wrote ​“singer”, but with little intention beyond the fact that I liked how it felt to sing. I joined grade school choirs, harmonised with my friends, and felt like I was part of a secret society. Everything changed at the fifth grade talent show. I gave my best shot at a rendition of ‘(You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman’ by Aretha Franklin, and something clicked. I couldn’t stop performing, and my community wouldn’t let me stop. I became known as ​“the girl who sings.”

I kept singing at talent shows, recording covers in my room, performing in school musicals, and trying to be creative wherever I could. Sometimes after a performance I would get off stage, and my friends, or their parents, or my teachers would have tears in their eyes. I was baffled, but seeing people’s reactions made me feel like I had a responsibility that was larger than just my own love for singing. 

But, I didn’t want to be ​“the girl who sings”. So, in true immigrant child fashion, I tried to do everything else I possibly could, as well as I possibly could. I started pouring myself into my studies and extracurricular activities, determined to transcend popular opinion. But singing and performing still lit up my soul, and my paths continued side-by-side. In college I poured my heart into a cappella while also trying to excel academically. It was all so exciting and engaging, but I was always slightly torn. 

I spent most of my youth plugged into the musical worlds of my friends and family. I lived on pop, indie-folk, r&b, hip hop, rap, and afrobeats. I never really listened to rock music growing up. The music I heard from my parents was more along the lines of Fela Kuti, Victor Uwaifo, Dolly Parton, and Kenny Rogers. But around my sophomore year of college, the ennui set in, and I found The Strokes. They felt like the complete antithesis of who I was, but, creatively, that difference was exhilarating. After weeks of listening through their discography and freaking out about them in my dorm room, I started writing my own music with a friend from a cappella. We’d spend evenings listening to and writing songs that blended what we heard with what we read, and what we had experienced. After that year, a whole new world opened up for me.

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I kept listening, kept learning, kept sharing, kept sinking myself into music while still trying to be an academic weapon. I’d write a song, then take an exam. Release a song, then apply for another program. Have the honour of an unbelievable collaboration with Fleet Foxes, then finish an essay on the train ride home. This tension has since become part of me. I write best when I read. And I study best when I have been refreshed by music. My original middle-school impulse to resist definition has led to an interesting balance of lifestyles. I’m grateful for all I’ve experienced because of it. But also, there’s nothing wrong with being ​“the girl who sings”. I’d like to try that label on for a while.

Florilegium by Uwade is out Friday, April 25 via Thirty Tigers.

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