AfriKane

Grace Wilson Akoyo has loved music since before he could hold a full conversation about it. He wrote his first rap verses in S.1 and cut his first song as a rapper in S.2, pulled toward the guitar-and-horn arrangements of 1990s jazz that played around him growing up in Uganda. Before he ever thought about releasing a record under his own name, he spent ten years as a touring live performer across Europe — building a stage instinct most artists don't get until much later, backed by his own band on festival stages far from home.

AfriKane calls his sound "Melancholic Deep Pop," a label he takes literally: airy, minor-key melodies carrying lyrics about love, self-discovery, mental health, and the pull of home. He names Melody Gardot, Ed Sheeran, and Michael Kiwanuka as his closest reference points — Sheeran for the writing craft, Kiwanuka for the lyricism and delivery he relates to most. His process starts before he ever touches an instrument: melodies arrive unannounced throughout the day, and he keeps his phone open to catch them as voice notes before they're gone. He describes his own sound as having "the best of both worlds," fusing songwriting habits picked up on the road with the lived experience of an African who has spent real time on both continents.

That decade on European stages is the foundation under his catalog, which now runs through his newest single, "Kole". His earlier catalog includes the debut EP led by "My City," and the touring résumé behind it is real: a headline set at Copenhagen's Distortion Festival with his own band, slots at the Oslo Afro Arts Festival, Kongsberg Jazz Festival, and Oslo Music Festival in Norway, a headline show in Sweden, and — the credit he's proudest of — opening for Congolese soukous legend Awilo Longomba in Norway in 2017.

"My City," from his earlier EP, remains his most personal cut — built around his own experience of dreaming about life outside Uganda, chasing it, and finding the reality more complicated than the fantasy. His own words sum up why he still does this: "Music explains everything I can't put in words."