After meeting Dwele and seeing him work the audience like a puppeteer who takes them in any emotional direction he wanted to take them, I wanted to ask him: “Uhhh, dude, don’t you know who you are? Can you be just a little bit more arrogant?! Your continual humbleness is aggravating me,” as he patiently greeted a throng of admirers through a whispery greeting during Essence Fest in N’awlins a few years ago.
Entertainment Weekly raved that Dwele “spreads sultry, jazz-inflected R&B over subtle but muscular hip hop grooves.” Maybe we need to repeat EW‘s proclamations through a megaphone. Dwele has been bringing the sweet-sounding noise since the Detroit native, reared up under the gigantic shadow cast by Motown, emerged with his breakout joint, Subject. With a name like Andwele, which is Swahili for “God has brought me,” it’s only a matter of time, we believe, until he procures more converts. In the meantime, while Americans sleep on this gifted musician, let the folks of Australia, where he was when I last checked on him, get served with a plate of his mastery.
