Welcome to Ear 2 Da Sky! Each week, I will be going over topics within music culture and reviewing albums across genres, eras and artists that are submitted by listeners of my radio show every Monday at 11 p.m. on WHUS 91.7 FM and readers like you! For this week’s submission, I will be going over Dreamer Isioma’s 2023 album, “Princess Forever.”
For those that don’t know, Dreamer Isioma and their band, “The Celestials,” have a bit of a storied history with the University of Connecticut. The group was set to perform in the spring semester of 2023 for WHUS’s Spring Fling, but the show had been cancelled due to a fire inside the Student Union. Dreamer Isioma & The Celestials had finally been set to make their UConn performance debut in the 2023 fall semester at WHUS’s Mischief After Dark. Finally, without outside forces interfering, they put on a great performance, with the help of the opener and local act: STATTIC.
“Princess Forever” is the artist’s third studio album, clocking in at 37 minutes. This is a range-displaying project for the group, showing off some pop, R&B, funk and even afrobeats, all while drawing from the idea of “Afrofuturism.” The album opens up with the simply titled track “Ah.” The slow and soft piano and synth-heavy pop song eases the listener into the rest of the journey. They talk about the idea of fear in romantic nonreciprocity and questioning what “normal” life is like, setting the stage for the next track. “Dumb In Love With You” is a continuation in following their romantic life, as they are what the song title suggests — dumb in love.
The fourth track, and their 2023 tour’s namesake, “Fuck Tha World,” shows the singer finding peace within nihilism, “Sayin’, ‘Fuck the world’ brings me inner peace / It’s all gonna blow up anyways / We’re all gonna float to outer space.” This is also the start of a three-track run of hits, followed up by “Technicolor Love.” They talk about their toxic and seemingly physically abusive relationship with this person, but withstanding and enduring it all, strictly due to the fact that they can put claim over this love interest. It’s a testament to how far the fear of unreciprocated emotions can go.
“Gimme A Chance” is track six off the album, and Dreamer Isioma shows off an “it-is-what-it-is” mentality over very bright and poppy-sounding instrumentals. The song, seemingly a cleanse of the negativity and fear of the previous tracks, tries to move on and put it all behind them.
Isioma calls on Merlyn Wood, a Ghanaian American singer and former member of the retired boyband, Brockhampton, for the seventh song. “Touch Your Soul” is a smooth afrobeat track that finds the two artists talking about their respective relationships: romantically, physically or both. Isioma puts claim over this new love interest, as it is much less abusive than previous ties.
Dreamer Isioma’s 2023 album, “Princess Forever,” is a dive into yearning and understanding real and genuine love, while traversing through adversities such as lack of reciprocity, ego death or even personal hubris and arrogance. The 13-song, 37-minute record is on the shorter end of albums, but the quality and soul are loud and clear in every song throughout the album.
4/5
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