Uwade

Over the past few years it seems Uwade has been everywhere, quietly. Her emotive voice is what opens Fleet Foxes’ Grammy-nominated album, Shore; from there she’s gone on to tour extensively in support of the band, along with opening for R&B and indie stalwarts like Jamila Woods, Sylvan Esso, The Strokes and more. Her solo output included a handful of singles, like the buoyant “Do You See the Light Around Me?” and the more somber “The Man Who Sees Tomorrow.” But now, finally, comes a full-length entirely her own, a shimmering anthology that finds sweetness and light in sorrow, an amalgamation of disparate influences and recording sessions seamlessly fitting together through her expressive, expansive voice.

Florilegium winds through genre, through death, break-ups, friendship, and failure. Here, she wanted to honor as much of herself as she could — her family and Nigerian heritage, her scholarly tendencies, her background in choirs, the literature that moves her, the melodies of artists like Fela Kuti, Yebba, and Julian Casablancas of the Strokes, who inspired her to start writing songs at the inception of her music-making. Currently in her first year of a PhD program in California after studying Classics at Columbia and Oxford, it’s hard not to draw a throughline that Uwade does craft her songs with a studied, careful hand. Cerebral and curious, each musical moment feels tactile, deliberate, and thoughtful — but also fresh, like something just discovered.