Yewande (pronounced E-wán-day and meaning Reincarnation Of Grandmother in Yoruba) first caught my ears with Rufus on the Organic Soul 3 compilation. And since then the story of a homeless man's hope for a new life has become one of my favourite songs of 2003 and I still love to listen to it over and over again. With it's folksy soulful production by Peter Lord and V. Jeffrey Smith (aka The Family Stand) and Yewande's great distinctive and earthy voice, that has already been discribed as reminiscent of Nina Simone cradled in the defiant arms of Janis Joplin, Rufus could really become a big success if it'll get the right promotion and exposure. So make sure to visit yewande.com to listen to some snippets of Yewande's songs and tell all your friends about her so that 2004 will become Yewande's year.
Thanks to Yewande herself I'll be able to tell you something about two more songs from her. Dream is a catchy acoustic guitar driven groove that tells the story how Yewande's gonna hold on to her dreams (which by the way are in technicolor).
Rapture sees Yewande raving about a new love over an uptempo soul song.
This three track taster makes one hungry for more and let's keep our fingers crossed that we'll get more from Yewande soon.