The Musician Insight

Five and a feather, the third album of Awa Ly, opens with the track Storyteller: the starting point of the making of this opus.

In 2016, she declared: “The sound was guiding me towards this liquid surface, languid under a blue moon”. And it is in this same world that we are transported to while listening to this song. Yet, we can found a more profound message between the lines, one of self-acceptance and love. Storyteller is not just about describing a dream: it is a journey of a woman who finally blooms within her art: she’s the storyteller.

Awa Ly, who grew up in France in a family full of music lovers, shown from a young age a passion for singing and jazz. Yet music isn’t her only talent: she is also an actress and a director, creating all different types of worlds.

First, there’s the world of music: singing, arranging, composing, performing, and then cinema: acting and directing. In both worlds, stories are created, and a mind is behind them. The creator is thus the one incarnating the music, writing it, or becoming a character: “she creates a thousand worlds”.

This storyteller is everywhere: through her art, she writes and tells stories and lets us travel through her world, whether it is reality or fiction. She’s “wide open” and gives us full access to what’s on her mind, fears, hopes, and state of mind; she’s the definition of an artist.

On the other hand, the messenger reflects a need to pass on this epiphany: she wants us to be as liberated as her, to understand each other on a deeper level. Inviting us to follow her (“won’t you follow me”) to discover ourselves completely and freely and to take our narrative back. In her dream, Awa Ly stated seeing an “apparition dressed in vaporous clothing”: music.

The one thing that healed her by being a universal language.

There are no rules, no wrong-doing: everything is accepted, and she’s free. All societal pressures are left behind, and she embodies her truth as a being and artist, and encourages us to do the same (“I’ll bring you to her”).

Photo © Daniel Baud