Yiigaa Releases Nirvana, Ahead Of EP Release!

Yiigaa is a self-described South London songstress, her musical career is fledging like a baby bird, yet already her vision as an artist has taken shape: songs straight from the city, the beautiful and the messy life of London. In her latest single Nirvana, the lyrics have a glittery, evanescent quality (“Make me feel like Nirvana, all my problems melt away’’) like we are to capture the essence of the song, like sand slipping through our fingers. The song does feel like an entire spiritual revelation, a complete moment, a song to listen to new and different each time. Yiigaa has a meandering and spiritual voice, while the drumming effects – almost marimba-like – create a strong mystical core to the songs. Her previous song Good Enough tells a tale of growth and overcoming, it’s a song about finding the power within, the ability to drag yourself metaphorically and literally through the dirt. Not choosing to fade away, Nirvana is about living with light, with love manifesting the goodness, admiration, and appreciation that was manifested on the journey of growth.

Yiiga’s song-writing technique is layered, yet the careful suffusing of lyrical poetry with the cinematic feeling the Brixton artist creates aligns her with artists of Lauryn Hill, PJ Harvey, or Amy Winehouse. Yiiga gives the same energy to her songs as when Amy Winehouse sung “Meet you downstairs in the bar and hurt/Your rolled-up sleeves in your skull T-shirt”; the firework theatrically and exquisite creativity unfold in real-time, talents which belonged to both soul divas. Describing it as her “flower in the darkroom’’ is significant because her songs are so loyal to exploring themes of growth, decay, transformation, the commitment to self-respect, and the cultivation of inner beauty. Lyrically, it is divine and uplifting, atmospherically it stays between infectious, bubbly, and mystical on the most intimate level.