Uwade

You’ve heard Uwade before. It’s her honeyed voice that opens Fleet Foxes’ 2020 record Shore — an experience that’s since earned her global critical acclaim. Though her career in music is now taking off, for Uwade, 21, singing has always been a kind of prayer. This stems, in part, from her spiritual upbringing —  steeped in the sounds of hymnal choral music and Nigerian Highlife on her dad’s car radio — and her rigorous education. A scholar of the highest order, Uwade has studied Classics at Columbia and Oxford, and cites Catullus and Virgil among her influences (along with Julian Casablancas and Nina Simone). Knowing this, it’s easy to want to plumb the academic depths of her sound. To describe her voice as a divine signal you’d read about in classic texts, at once ancient and altogether new.

But this feels heavy. And the truth is that Uwade’s voice is an embodiment of light. Yes, there is hope and influence and complexity there, but in the end, there’s just joy. The joy of following a feeling. Of being lost in the pleasure of the present moment. Of singing together with people in a room. Uwade’s latest single “The Man Who Sees Tomorrow' could stand as a balm to our present time, an ode to hope in the midst of unbearable loss: “And even though my memories are fading far too fast / One day I will know it all / And frolic in the grass.”