Lagos Altè Pioneer, Suté Iwar Releases Wide-Ranging, Cohesive Debut, 'ULTRALIGHT'
Evan Dale // May 2, 2023
The rangy musical space of Altè is one of those aesthetic sub-genres, or whatever one may want to call something nearly, but not quite definitive in its regional and musical fluency - that is more of a feeling instead of hosting a rigid stylistic structure, or part of an obvious lineage. It’s something you know when you hear it, even if you can’t define it. By its name, it’s alternative. An alternative to Highlife, AfroBeats, AfroFusion, and Afro-Everything that has become internationally recognized in the mainstream as some sort of something seemingly more definitive by way of West Africa and its global diaspora. Altè defies all of those expectations - except for its international and stylistic boundlessness - building towards something less recognizable, and more experimentally entrenched with cues and nuance taken from hip-hop, reggae, electronic, R&B, jazz and anywhere else where an artist wishes to source inspiration for patchworks shiny and new, yet seemingly somehow always mellow. Usually, that something new is also orbiting the diasporic hotbed that is London, and all the musical happenings extending from there. And, like so many musical sub-spaces born from an ongoing West African Cultural Renaissance populated in Nigeria and Ghana in particular and outstretched towards the UK, the Caribbean, and North America, Altè is in constant self-evolution. In 2019, Santi’s Mandy & The Jungle - a cornerstone masterpiece in the space’s early years - breathed of a certain low-energy, experimental auditory aesthetic that though certainly tied to its roots in AfroBeats and AfroFusion, feels altogether less beachy and instead more melancholy; ultimately more in tune with a feeling closer to a rainy day than a summer night. But now, only four years later, Nigerian AfroFusion virtuoso Suté Iwar’s ULTRALIGHT feels alternative not only to its roots across a pan-African musical modernity, but even to its own roots in Altè; even to its own predecessors like Mandy & The Jungle. Such is Altè’s nature, in perpetual reinvention of itself, yet undeniably still tethered to its roots.
In Suté’s words, ULTRALIGHT is “a journey that takes you through a range of emotions, from the high energy and excitement of life to the introspection and self-reflection that comes with it… [his] goal was to create music that speaks to the heart and soul, to evoke feelings of love, hope, and inspiration. Each track on the album tells a story and takes the listener on a journey through soundscapes that are both familiar and new.”
It’s all about a feeling. Not a particular BPM, or theme, or reminiscence towards something in the past. Instead, Suté tunnels the roots of his ULTRALIGHT inherently inward. In that way - and in its cleverly meandering, indefinable crossroads through musical range and thematic discourse - it is reminiscent in its independent, inventive nature to Santi’s Mandy & The Jungle. In short, it doesn’t sound quite like anything made before it. It tells a truly introspective story, and yet undoubtedly feels familiar to anyone, from any corner of the world, that may be tuning in - especially if they’re already fans of Altè’s unpredictability, authenticity, and applicability to soundtrack the ups, downs, and middle-grounds of anyone’s day-to-day life.
Perhaps unlike Mandy & The Jungle - which bled as a whirlwind of experimental light shone into Santi’s still developing signature and wide-reaching experimental tangents - it would be challenging to listen to ULTRALIGHT at length and not get a sense of just how cohesive it is from top to bottom. Teetering on the structural makeup of a project from the likes of an artist like Kendrick Lamar or Kojey Radical, where both narrative and transitional musicality make a project a composition best heard at its full scope, in order, from beginning to end, Suté’s debut meditates on the strength of its structure and sequence.
And to achieve that, ULTRALIGHT plays thematically as a documentary on the artist and the man himself. Opening in a too-hot London - a too-true state of the city in a too-hot climate - narrators are pushed indoors and make the decision to stream the Suté doc. From then on, by way of a swatch of differing narrators hosting various interludes - some from Suté’s life, and some curated to push the framing of the larger story - continue to build a framework that allows our protagonist’s series of tracks to unfold as a larger story, confluencing at moments of emotional depth.
And within those smaller chapters - from track-to-track - perhaps Suté’s greatest achievement plays out: range. That omnipresent Altè indefinability sees Suté pull from so many stylistic spaces and emotional spectrums that within ULTRALIGHT’s broader cohesion, a vast mosaic of discourse is discussed, an even wider-reaching musical range is navigated, and an emotional journey spanning a uniquely relatable breadth is the penultimate outcome.
It’s that broad-spanning relatability that makes ULTRALIGHT - like so many Altè projects before it - such a force. There’s something ambiguous enough about so much of the album that it feels applicable to any listener’s life. And yet, its documentary structure makes it purely a study on Suté himself. Cuts like JUDAH LION with WurID, SHUGA PEACH, and THE PLEASURE PRINCIPLE with Raytheboffin triangulate the Lagos artist’s explorations of love and lust. Tracks like MEDITATE featuring his Tay Iwar and Lex Amor, STAR PLAYER with Kadiata, and THE LIGHT with Twelve XII are the album’s mellow, slow-ride jams that mark ULTRALIGHT as an extension of the expanding Altè tradition. BIG WORLD BABY featuring Shalom Dubas stands as an anthemic celebration of the West African Renaissance and its ability to pull up regions and generations by way of art, music, fashion, and culture at large. And every other song and intermission, too, play their own respective roles, helping to round out ULTRALIGHT as a cohesive yet rangy, independently insightful yet globally applicable addition to a growing number of Altè masterpieces continuing to cement the indefinable space not only in its place as part of a West African Renaissance, but a global one.
