AN articulacy and a wisdom beyond her years, armed with groove filled beats and melodies that are as catchy as they are clever, Denise Chaila has truly arrived with Go Bravely.
The Irish-Zambian singer is describing this as a ‘mixtape’ rather than an album, but however you chose to classify this 11 song collection, it is a major first statement from an truly exciting Irish artist.
While Chaila’s music draws on American and British hip-hop, it is not overly indebted to either. Rather it has its own identity, drawing strongly from Chaila’s Irish and African heritage, and the way in which she comfortably articulates and represents both.
"I’m too sean-nós and too creole, too Fionn MacCumhaill, too Fela" she says in the brilliant ‘Rí Ra’, a riposte to those who cannot come to terms with her being both Black and Irish. It also - on an album littered with quotable phrases - contains the very wise and shrewd, “I won't trust a hypothesis without a frame of reference" - sage advice for this Trumpian ‘post-Truth’ era.
Throughout Go Bravely, Chaila’s lyrics are peppered by a use of Gaeilge that is witty, ironic, and humorous, but also has a touch of pride, witness ‘Anseo’, where she turns a dreary phrase uttered by generations of schoolchildren at roll-call into a declaration of visibility and empowerment.
Such ideas also dominate the brilliant opener, ‘Chaila’, a humorous examination of the numerous ways people have mispronounced her name. "My name is the soul of my world", she reminds listeners - these things do matter.
Not since Phil Lynott has there been such a presence on the Irish musica scene, and if Chaila represents the future of what Irish youth looks like, then there is reason to have hope - even towards the end of a year like 2020.
