AYESHA RASCOE, HOST:
The word florilegium comes from the Latin florilegus, meaning a gathering of flowers. It's also a word for a literary collection, an anthology, and now it's the title of singer-songwriter Uwade's debut album...
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "(I WONDER) WHAT WE'RE MADE OF")
UWADE: (Singing) We're on the way past forever. Sometimes it seems so strange.
RASCOE: ...A reflective, deeply personal collection of songs about memory, family and growing into yourself. Rooted in her Nigerian American identity, each song feels carefully chosen, curated to fit into the anthology of her life.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "(I WONDER) WHAT WE'RE MADE OF")
UWADE: (Singing) You think I'm glowing.
RASCOE: Uwade joins us now to tell us more about her album. Welcome to the program.
UWADE: Thank you so much for having me. It's an honor to be here.
RASCOE: You were raised in North Carolina, but you were born in Nigeria. Do you feel like you have representations of both places on this album?
UWADE: I definitely think so. Some of the songs, I think, are directly inspired by my Nigerian heritage. But then there's also some sort of more classic, like, folk-inspired stuff, which I definitely got a lot of when I was growing up in North Carolina.
(SOUNDBITE OF UWADE SONG, "(I WONDER) WHAT WE'RE MADE OF")
RASCOE: Where are you right now? Are you outside? Are you on the street, or...
UWADE: I am outside of a coffee shop in Seattle, Washington, getting ready for my show. Just came from San Francisco this morning, landed at 9 a.m. - it's a wild life I'm living at the moment.
RASCOE: Well, and, I mean, I guess that makes thinking about home when you're on the road and all that even more complicated. What is home? Do you grapple with that on this album?
UWADE: Definitely. I mean, it's such a big part of how I think about things. As of right now, just because I'm so close to my mom, I think of home as wherever she is. At this point, because I've had so many homes, at least conceptually or sort of based on my heritage, I feel like anywhere can be a home, and I think it's more about the people.
(SOUNDBITE OF UWADE SONG, "(I WONDER) WHAT WE'RE MADE OF")
RASCOE: You have a song, "The Place In The Sky," that seems to capture a lot of these feelings.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "THE PLACE IN THE SKY")
UWADE: (Singing) So whenever you're ready, I'll ask for you at the door. Don't tell me what I want to know to the place in the sky.
RASCOE: And your singing is absolutely beautiful. Is there someone that you're singing to in this song?
UWADE: Well, that song came after the passing of my father in 2020.
RASCOE: Oh, I'm so sorry.
UWADE: Oh, no, it's OK. Thank you. And in a way, I was singing to him. I was singing about him, but I was also just singing to God, singing to this sort of force beyond me. I see death as something that everyone will have to face at one point or another. And I think when you're grieving, you're particularly close to it.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "THE PLACE IN THE SKY")
UWADE: (Singing) When the poets welcome me, I'll know this is the place.
RASCOE: There's a sense of the past and present kind of constantly overlapping throughout the album. How did you think about the way time and memory intertwine?
UWADE: As we know, there are certain things that happen to us in life. If you smell a certain perfume or if you hear a certain song, it's like it's happening all over again. And so, in a way, I feel like time can be very flexible, and for me, I definitely like the idea of playing with time a little bit, so...
RASCOE: The song Harmattan - what does that mean? Where does that title come from?
UWADE: So it's the name of a weather season in West Africa. Dust comes from the Sahara, and it covers almost all of West Africa. I would always visit Nigeria during that time when I was younger, and so I just thought Nigeria was always dusty and cloudy. For some reason, the chord progression that I started the song with really felt like that season to me.
(SOUNDBITE OF UWADE SONG, "HARMATTAN")
RASCOE: We have a clip from the song, so let's play a little bit of that.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "HARMATTAN")
UWADE: (Singing) Living through every moment, letting go all I've been holding onto. Portraits and terrible visions haunt me. When will you decide? Are you happy with your life?
RASCOE: I understand the drum beat is taken from a ritual that was used at your dad's funeral.
UWADE: Yeah, yeah. I'm a big fan of rituals. There's this thing called Igbabonelimhin (ph), and it's this dance that people do where my dad is from, and I've always loved it. I remember I got to watch them perform at my grandmother's funeral, then my dad's funeral, and it was just, like, I wanted to pay some homage to that in the drums.
(SOUNDBITE OF UWADE SONG, "HARMATTAN")
RASCOE: Have you answered that question for yourself? That lyric - when will you decide, are you happy with your life?
UWADE: You know, I thought I did. And you know what? I am right back there, asking myself that same thing, both of those questions at this moment.
RASCOE: You talked about how your mom is also like home for you, and you included her voice on a song. Tell me about that.
UWADE: It's called "Amenaghawon" which means, the water you drink.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "AMENAGHAWON")
UWADE: (Singing) Over oceans.
And it's from a larger proverb. My mom explained it to me, like, once you put your hand in the river, the water that's going to enter your cup or your jug - that's the water you were meant to have, and it won't pass you by. It won't be too late. It won't be too early. It'll be for you at the right time.
RASCOE: Like, what is for you is for you. Can't nobody take it from you, right?
UWADE: Exactly. And the first time she told me what that phrase meant, I was blown away. This is so comforting. I think in the wake of my father's passing, I really have realized how fragile life is.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "AMENAGHAWON")
UWADE: (Vocalizing).
RASCOE: That's Uwade. Her debut album, "Florilegium," is out now. Thank you so much.
UWADE: Thank you so much for having me. It's been a pleasure.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "AMENAGHAWON")
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: (Non-English language spoken).
UWADE: (Vocalizing). Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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