Taking us on a journey through his ‘six-part storytelling project’, the South London champion, Dabieh, explores the external confusion of the 21st century in his most confident project to date.
While many may know David Dabieh as co-founder of South London’s home-grown Cloud X festival, his influence on the UK music scene has always sought to expand wider and brighter. With notable production collaborations alongside Fred Again.., Lola Young, and Lancey Foux, as well as his own solo career, Dabieh has consistently evolved in every aspect of his career while championing the authentic, community-driven ethos that blazes from within Cloud X.
It’s this same spirit that is intricately woven into his musical output as a singer-songwriter, and now Dabieh returns with ‘us, uninterrupted.’, a 6-track EP that mixes a delectable lineup of R&B, hiphop, indie, alt-pop and and even featuring a moment of spoken word.
Since his first solo releases in 2021, Dabieh has continued honing his story-telling skills. Now, he tells how this latest project has served as a vehicle to discern the world around him as a “six-part storytelling project of musical observations, my way of articulating the human experience in this tangled and increasingly confusing world”.
The EP opens with the melodic and resonant “you (we) should be free.” setting the tone for Dabieh’s self-produced blend of swinging alt-pop and dreamy R&B which underpin the project. With each track, Dabieh’s storytelling intentions are made clear as we hear a collection of gentle sentiments on human connection, love and inner conflict, and with every track Dabieh hopes to bring the listener a sense of ‘existential clarity’.
The penultimate track ‘merry-go-round.’ is a standout. With its woozy chord progression and self-assured vocals, Dabieh presents a poignant reminder to the listener to embrace life’s lessons and remember ‘life is fragile’. ‘merry-go-round.’ exudes a coming of age quality, that’s pensive and hopeful, and which weaves into the closing track ‘new age narcissism.’. In the EP’s final minutes the South London multi-hyphenate recounts a stream of consciousness, winding down atop a stripped back chord progression. It’s here, while wrapped in the project's balmy tones, that Dabieh’s message to London’s youth reaches its climax. In a magical letter to the listener, he remarks ‘what is the quality and function of kindness and empathy, in a world that seems to reward destruction more than creativity'.
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