Rising Welsh star Ify Iwobi has announced the release of her latest single Solo, which is due out on all major platforms this Friday 4th December. The Swansea performer has teamed up with fellow South Walian musician and artist Luna Lie Lot for the new tune – a collaboration which Iwobi described on her Instagram account as having “been in the works for a long time“. The track is available to pre-save on Spotify now.
My new track ‘Solo’ ft @LunaLieLot drops 4th December 2020 on all major platforms! Soo pumped for you guys to hear the final product! Please click pre save button below to be one of the first to get ur copy! Thank you guys, much love! https://t.co/ibuzSjOZ6v#comingsoontour
— Ify Iwobi (@IfyIwobiMusic) December 2, 2020
The upcoming release of Solo, which Iwobi has described as a RnB/pop crossover, will cap off a busy year for the multi-talented instrumentalist. In October she unveiled her Afrobeat-influenced EP Bossin’ It, which included collaborations with Cardiff singer-songwriter Anwar Siziba and Walthamstow rapper Cardo Remel. The lead single from the EP, Thinking About You, also saw Iwobi join forces with Nigerian artist Jinmi Abduls.
Iwobi had spoken about her desire to pay sonic homage to her African heritage on the EP. In a November press release, she said “I really wanted to focus on my Nigerian roots in this EP as I had explored my British side in my album (2019’s Illuminate). I was inspired by hard working women and black artists in the field such as Beyonce and Rihanna to make ‘Bossin’ It’, the title track.”
Whilst still in the early stages of her career, Iwobi has already demonstrated an impressive degree of musical versatility: her 2019 debut LP Illuminate saw the starlet traverse a range of genres, from folk-pop to jazz; and classical to electro. That sonic dexterity helped see the West Glamorgan product gain recognition on the BBC Radio Wales’ A-List earlier this year; just the latest formal accolade for the up-and-comer who also won the musician category in the Black History Month Youth Awards as a 22-year old back in 2016.
While 2020 has been a creative purple patch for Iwobi, she was also one of a number of Welsh artists to speak out about the devastating financial impact of the coronavirus pandemic on the music sector. In an interview with BBC Wales in September, the songstress voiced her support for a guaranteed basic income for creative professionals. She said “Eighty per cent of my income has totally gone. It is so difficult when you rely on performances to fund you, and it has totally disappeared…It is our lives, for musicians. It is our livelihood, it’s our joy, it is our everything. If there was some way that government could do something to help us and aid us…it would mean the world and I would be so grateful.”
It’s fair to say that Iwobi has not always had it easy – something that is borne out in Solo’s reflective lyrical turns (“The rose is golden like her soul.. thorns along the way only make her stronger..”) In 2019 she spoke out bravely about the psychological after-effects of the bullying she had experienced as a teenager in a moving interview with Wales Online.
In the piece, she stated that “…school was a rollercoaster of emotion and I really felt sad for years. I had anxiety and stress and felt useless and that I didn’t belong. It affected my mental health and I had to have medication and therapy in my teens. I still have nightmares about it to this day.I have been scared to talk about it but it is important for others in the same situation to share my experiences.”
Away from her promising musical career, Iwobi continues to participate in a range of good causes. She has supported the Barnado’s children’s charity; Onani Foundation Sight2020, a Welsh based charity supporting blind and partially sighted children in Malawi; and the Professor Joseph Ogbonna Education Foundation, which educates disadvantaged children in rural villages of Eastern Nigeria. Iwobi is also a founder and project manager for the Race Council Cymru’s Crossing Borders Project in Swansea.
