Elsy Wameyo has announced her long-awaited debut album, Saint Sinner.
The Nairobi-born, Adelaide-based singer, rapper, and producer will release her first album on Friday, 26th July 2024 through AWAL / Impressed Recordings.
Wameyo returned to her home country of Kenya to create Saint Sinner as a means to reconnect with her roots and draw inspiration from the person behind the music. Collaborating with producers such as Wuod Omollo, Polycarp, and Ywaya Tajiri, she surrounded herself with a supportive team that fostered growth and creative rejuvenation. The album is the result of these collaborative sessions in Kenya’s Naivasha region.
Wameyo shared her thoughts on the album: “I know I had always yearned to say these certain things; I never found the perfect way to say it. Especially when you’re a young black girl, no one is encouraging you to speak your mind. I know for a fact that these are words that I’ve definitely sat with for a long time.”
To mark her album announcement, Wameyo has shared her latest single, “Umva”, which you can listen to below. Over an icy beat, she delivers charismatic lyrics that were penned during a Kenyan writing camp alongside Omollo.
“’Umva’ was a part where I could flex, but still speak my truth. It was coming from a place where, internally, I was feeling this album. Internally, I knew I was having this battle between saint and sinner, I just didn’t understand it. I didn’t know what it was,” Wameyo explains.
“I wrote this verse with Motez before that London trip… I had to say certain things and this was one of those verses, where it was my body – whether I liked it or not – saying, ‘We have to get this out, because it’s the only way we’re going to heal.’
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As for the track title, Wameyo shares: “”Umva” means “listen.” My photographer at the time, at the camp, he’s from Burundi. When Wuod had done the track, we were jumping around and listening to it and he said the word “umva.” I thought it was really cool, and he told me it means “listen.”
“I ran with that so hard. It was perfect. It was exactly the energy I wanted: when I speak, you’d better sit down and listen. When I enter a room, you stand up and you must salute. Respect.”
Wameyo’s album announcement follows a big 2023 and 2024 so far for the artist, including headline shows with a full live band, supporting Genesis Owusu on his national album tour, and performing internationally in Kenya.
Saint Sinner will follow her debut EP Nilotic in 2022, which earned her six awards at the South Australia Music Awards, including Best Studio Engineer/Producer, Best Music Video, Best Song, Best Solo Artist, and Best Release. Elsy was also named triple j’s Unearthed Artist of the Year in 2022.
Elsy Wameyo’s “Umva” is out now. Saint Sinner is out July 26th via AWAL / Impressed Recordings (pre-save/pre-order here).
