Brick Lane Jazz Festival: Fehdah @ Werkhaus

Brick Lane Jazz Festival makes its debut at the Truman Brewery in April 2022: Three days of jazz music set across five stages, with twenty-four performing artists, the festival will showcase the best of London’s vibrant jazz scene. On Friday 22nd April, Fehdah will be taking over the WERKHAUS stage for a unique live performance. 

ABOUT FEHDAH

Spiritual daughter of Erykah Badu and Oumou Sangare, electronic cousin of Peggy Gou, Fehdah is a future-afro soul vocalist, producer and multi-instrumentalist, on the frontline of an emerging Irish hip-hop and electronic music scene. An eclectic songwriter who draws on her love of Wassoulou music in forging an entirely new take on electronic soul.

“Fehdah is crafting her own genre” – Gal Dem
“‘Butter Fly’ finds Fehdah on propulsive form, channelling touches of instrumental grime with the likes of Lafawndah and Little Dragon. The vocal pairing plays to each sister’s strengths, Loah’s enveloping range weaving around Fehdah’s own urgent verses”. – The Quietus
“Afrofuturist electrosoul worthy of many respins” – The Irish Times

Following the success of her debut EP, Like No Other, premiered by Aaron Byrd on LA radio station, KCRW in 2017; Fehdah has shared the stage with Grammy-nominated artists such as Nai Palm at KOKO in London, Thundercat at Vicar Street in Dublin, Hiatus Kaiyote, Taylor McFerrin, Kamaal Williams with IAMDDB, Georgia Anne Muldrow and Tank and the Bangas. She has since delved deeper in the direction of the title track of this EP, producing a pioneering sound that she describes as “Sahelian-Electrosoul”.

Fehdah is making waves as a producer since the release of her debut remix of, This Heart by Loah, last year. Her single, Saharakungoh, released on Valentine’s Day, 2019, is a vocally rich, heavily syncopated and lyrically vulnerable love song. A new and cohesive moulding of contemporary electronic and traditional instrumentation which is aligned with today’s paradigm of the 21st century Afrofuturist. It was premiered on Worldwide FM, included on the New Music Friday UK Spotify playlist and got lots of love on BBC Radio 1.

Buffer Fly is Fehdah’s most recent single, released on April 19th. This track was playlisted on All New All Now and New Music Friday UK as well as getting spins on BBC Radio 1 and Worldwide FM. The song was written as both a lullaby and a war cry for Fehdah’s young nieces. The sweet but powerful intro is juxtaposed with the dark and gritty verses where she references Slavic mythical demon Drekevac and ancient Babylonian Assaku spirits as metaphors for the anger and fear that some women face. The jubilant chorus celebrates vulnerability and fierceness in equal measure. Layered throughout in delicate but rich vocal harmony from Fehdah, 90s R’n’B female girl groups are briefly invoked but this is where the similarities end. Her use of Sierra Leonean Krio to create a highly syncopated, percussive verse that wouldn’t be out of place on the Black Panther soundtrack, takes the track to a different dimension. This is surely the music of an Afrofuturist.

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Listen on Spotify