Sasha Dawe – Who I Am (2025)
Sasha Dawe has released a new single, ‘Who I Am’, in anticipation of a 5-song EP called Here I Am which will drop March 21st. Hailing from Namibia, Dawe’s new single digs deeper into the cultural sound of the nation than the material on his 2024 album Boat. Boat is a solid folky album that features whimsical and lightly satirical songs sung in his unpolished baritone. But if ‘Who I Am’ is a portent of things to come, then Dawe is engaged in a period of significant artistic growth.
‘Who I Am’ opens with a prominent but softer version of Dawe’s voice singing a capella, ‘Proverbial sentence’. As an isolated fragment highlighted right out of the gate, it feels like a quiet call for attention. Is this going to be another proverbial phrase or something new? As he completes the sentence with “has fallen off the page”, his acoustic guitar picks up the rhythm with a stripped-down finger-picking pattern and sound reminiscent of José González.
This is definitely new territory for Dawe who does not stay with the stripped-down approach but builds a much fuller arrangement with drums (Keegan Williams), bass (Joe Van Der Linden), and piano (Grandall Vlotman) giving the song a dreamy quality. After a few lines, Dawe alters the melody over the same progression and incorporates a choir of male voices singing a unison response in what is probably Oshiwambo, the most commonly spoken indigenous language in Namibia (though there are other indigenous languages they could be speaking). The juxtaposition of an acoustic shoe-gaze-like palette with Namibian voices makes a beautiful pairing.
The icing on the cake is the lead guitar work by Van Der Linden. He slides in (literally) under Dawe as the singer explores biblical imagery of the Garden of Eden. Van Der Linden gets a delicate instrumental break to expound on the melody in beautiful, extended fragments before settling down to some classic licks behind Dawe’s phrasing. There is more to come from Dawe as we look forward to the release of Here I Am. If the similarly declarative “Who I Am” is any indication, good things are on the way.
Find out more about Sasha Dawe on his Facebook, Instagram and Spotify.
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