MusicInterviewDawuna: meet the nighthawk behind one of 2021’s masterpiece albums
Nathan EvansIan Mugerwa escaped hometown racism and a traumatic relationship to move to New York, where his electronic R&B has become a word-of-mouth triumph
Few albums that get dropped into the internet void then take on a life of their own through word of mouth alone. But when New York-based artist Ian Mugerwa, AKA Dawuna, created a record of luminous R&B laced with gospel undertones and experimental electronics, it couldn’t hide in the digital wilderness for long.
“When I put Glass Lit Dream online [in November 2020], I was in a hectic mental space, so it was this very impulsive decision. Would I do that now? Probably not,” the 25-year-old admits. “I was sitting on this thing that I thought was really good but the music industry was in disarray with Covid. So I didn’t even know how it would reach people.” Nonetheless it did, attracting the attention of ambient nomads Space Afrika and jazz drummer Moses Boyd. The latter describes the album to me as “so sick ... an intricately beautiful collection of songs and sonics. An incredible journey of music”.
Its success warranted an official release (and a fresh remastering) via London label O____o?. Now more people will get to know the wonder of Glass Lit Dream, an album of smouldering soul made for the deepest of nights. “I was working a night job at the time, so my schedule was flipped,” says Mugerwa. He recorded the album in his basement apartment, dealing with numerous floods and using lonely midnight walks to help recuperate from PTSD from a previous relationship. “It got to the point where I was very rarely seeing sunlight, but I’m a night owl, so it was a very comfortable process for me.” That nocturnal comfort comes through in the final product, which couples the R&B jam structures of D’Angelo’s Voodoo (Mugerwa’s favourite LP) with the electronic alchemy of British occultists Coil.
Mugerwa was born in Maryland and lived his early years in Nairobi, Kenya. After his diplomat mother witnessed the 1998 US embassy bombing, his family moved to Fairfax County, Virginia. Mugerwa was five years old. “Fairfax County is a very white area, so there was a lot of racism there throughout my childhood,” he remembers. He faced a disturbing level of suspicion and passive-aggressive ostracism from locals. “That shit sucked,” he says. “You grow up knowing that if you represent yourself as a proud Black person, your environment is going to balk at that.”
Moving to New York in 2019, Mugerwa began the long journey towards personal healing. “While I was recording this album, I was repressing a lot of stuff that I needed to deal with,” he says. “After the album, I went into therapy. That was an intense process, but it was really needed.”
Moving to New York also helped him escape the relationship that had left Mugerwa with PTSD. “It was a pretty horrifying time in my life,” he says, literally breathing a sigh of relief. Glass Lit Dream does not address this directly – instead it acts as a marker for Mugerwa’s first steps as a free man. “It was me solidifying that I had left that space and I don’t have to talk about it in my music. But the effects of that relationship will linger on with me. PTSD is gonna be a lifelong thing.”
Lyrically, Mugerwa often references religious existentialism, invoking biblical scenes of death and pleas to God. Though he describes it as “an electronic album”, he was also inspired by gospel music, which he discovered through the internet in his teens. “I was raised passively Protestant and that never really vibed with me,” he says. “The best I could do was, from my laptop, have a window into that world, listening to Aretha Franklin, Reverend TL Barrett, Mahalia Jackson … I heard Peace Be Still by Reverend James Cleveland and, to this day, I’ve never heard anything like it. That one piece of music changed how I look at the power of the voice.”
Glass Lit Dream hums with the influence of Black musical history: “Black people created movement after movement which became massively influential on a global scale. Techno, rock, jazz, soul, disco … all that came from this lineage of Black musicians that were doing types of music that could be traced back to negro work songs, negro spirituals and early gospel music.” Mugerwa’s goal with Glass Lit Dream is simply to be part of that lineage: “Here’s the past, what has happened … and here’s something that could be the next step.”
In the UK, call the national domestic abuse helpline on 0808 2000 247, or visit Women’s Aid or the Men’s Advice Line. In Australia, the national family violence counselling service is on 1800 737 732. In the US, the domestic violence hotline is 1-800-799-SAFE (7233). Other international helplines may be found via www.befrienders.org
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