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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