ALBUM REVIEW: Obongjayar – Some Nights I Dream of Doors

September Recordings

Released: 13.05.22

A veridically singular voice, Obongjayar (aka Steven Umoh) has spent the last few years honing his genre-evading sound across an undeniably stellar string of eclectic releases, whilst also racking up a bevy of blistering features for heavyweights like Little Simz, Giggs and Moses Boyd.

Peppered with vividly conjured images of lucid dreamscapes, Umoh’s long-awaited debut weaves a potent melange of Afrobeats, hip-hop and soul influences into a cohesive cornucopia of audacious musicality. The delights here are bountiful: Message In a Hammer proffers a searing gospel of political dissent deftly buttressed with bombastic bursts of Fela-esque urgency, elsewhere, the intuitive vulnerability of both I Wish It Was Me and Wind Sailor assuredly bespeak the emotional fluency of Umoh’s songcraft. Simply sublime.