Music  

Tay Iwar In Love and Isolation

By Chinonso Ihekire

24 April 2021   |   4:20 am

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When Grammy-winning singer, Wizkid, collaborated with Tay Iwar on the song True Love, off his Made in Lagos album, the entire Nigerian alternative music community were amazed.

When Grammy-winning singer, Wizkid, collaborated with Tay Iwar on the song True Love, off his Made in Lagos album, the entire Nigerian alternative music community were amazed. For many, it was a beautiful chemistry between a mainstream heavyweight and selectively famous alte musician.

However, for some others, Tay’s musical ingenuity was always an eldorado to be discovered. With the release of his second Extended Playlist (EP) and seventh compilation project, dubbed Love and Isolation, Tay Iwar consolidates the songwriting wit and lyrical artistry that has trademarked his projects since his debut seven years ago. For the Abuja-based 23-year-old, the 5-track EP is another naked yet impersonal reflection on love experiences.

Starting with a soothing RnB record dubbed Yoga, featuring the Afro-Soul Queen, Asa, Tay Iwar takes the imagination to a cozy morning with warm breakfasts and yoga exercises, expressing his desires for intimacy with his romantic partner. The vibe is just a stone throw from Stones, the second track off the EP, which enlists Kenyan RnB Princess, Xeniah Manasseh, on a story about forgiveness and love’s trials.

The story continues with narratives on romantic affection – Feel ft. Lou Val (Canadian singer) and Insightful and on longevity and loneliness – Thinking, and finally climaxes with its lead single Peaking, with memoirs of a sensitive lover embroiled in regret. The entire playlist is a very raw insight into ‘young love’, with the artistic sound direction of an alternative singer and perfectly polished RnB melodies.

With three tracks produced by Tay Iwar, Doozy and Insightful co-producing the rest two respectively, Tay reaches for his sonic blueprint vibrant and vivid for its norm-defiant easy-going/ballad approach.

However, like Tay’s debut album, Passport, which he produced, recorded and released when he was barely 16, in 2014, this EP radiates Tay’s poetic songwriting mastery. Interestingly, he enlisted lyrical juggernaut, Jesse Abaga, a.k.a. Jesse Jagz, in writing Yoga.

Unlike his brothers, Sute and Terna Iwar – who are two-thirds of the fraternal trio he started at age 13, Bantu Collective, Tay rarely infuses Nigerian elements into his music, for personal artistic preferences.

His baptism into the music scene began with Passport, which was a project stewed in his own personal life experiences. Since then, Tay has traversed the musical timelines with six different compilation projects that are less personal, but reinterpreted and profound reflections of love and life – his niche subject matters.

Despite his musical ingenuity as a producer, songwriter and singer, Tay Iwar and the Iwar brothers have continued to remain off the commercial radar, with their music being more popular than their own names and images. Now, with Wizkid putting Tay Iwar on a global viewfinder, the singer has attained a level of fame that is likely to test his fidelity to his native RnB alternative melodies. However, only time can truly tell.

With Love and Isolation, Tay presents yet another vivid and exciting storybook for those with rare romantic fantasies, creative imaginations and a flair for poetic art expressions. All eyes are definitely beaming on the young musician, now.