“I know what I resonate with, and I know what I’m made of,” Alewya told NME in 2022, “and that’s naturally going to find its way out of me into whatever I touch.” Born in Saudi Arabia and raised in Sudan by Ethiopian and Egyptian parents, Alewya’s sound is heavily influenced by her African and Arab roots while also speaking to the multi-diasporic London she calls home. Her 2021 debut project ‘Panther In Mode’ included Arabic scales sitting alongside amapiano rhythms and dub basslines, all offset with prowling melodies befitting the big cat of its title.
On her debut album proper, Alewya strengthens her genre-less sound and creates a collection of pan-global sounds underpinned by a stirring voice that defies easy categorisation. There is little musical throughline on ‘Zero’, which was co-produced with longtime collaborators Craigie Dodds (Sugababes, Rizzle Kicks) and Grammy-nominated mixing engineer Dean James Barratt with drum’n’bass icon Shy FX serving as executive producer, and it is this melting pot eclecticism that defines the kinetic landscape of the record.
‘City Of Symbols’ features percussion from Little Simz drummer eejebee and guitar by the classically trained Vraell, bringing together Ethiopian rhythms with lyrics exploring the transactional nature of big city life (“I know they see me as a dollar”). ‘Selah,’ meanwhile, ups the bpm with a hummed bassline and lyrics that reflect the move from head to body. “Heart on skank, skipped in lands, clap these hands,” she sings on the album highlight.
Alewya’s adaptable vocals illuminate the mid-tempo atmospheres heard throughout ‘Zero’. On ‘Eshi’ she is calm and considered, nodding to gospel sounds in a song about reincarnation and her hometown of Lalibela. Backed by Ethiopian artist Dagmawit Ameha on ‘Night Drive’, meanwhile, she switches into a more seductive mode as she purrs about desire and losing control. It is only on a handful of songs (‘Maktoub’ and ‘Guttah’) when she delivers her vocals with a broad London twang, that you are taken out of Alewya’s world and reminded of M.I.A. It’s not that the songs don’t work, per se, more that it deviates from what is otherwise an otherwise original sound.
The job for artists with as broad a palette as Alewya’s is one of curation – and it’s something she excels at. ‘Zero’ is sleek throughout while the production provides enough left turns to ensure it never lapses into background listening. At 15 tracks, the album could do with a bit of a trim, however, as a statement of where she has come from and where she is heading, ‘Zero’ makes for striking testimony.
