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Elsy Wameyo embraces duality on 'Saint Sinner'

Brian Kinywa
/
Courtesy of the artist

To make her latest album, Elsy Wameyo made the trek from her longtime home in Adelaide to Nairobi, where she was born. For the longest time, Wameyo didn't feel like she belonged to either country, but that has begun to change.

"I think there's so many things about Kenyans that I see — I'm, like, 100% I'm from this country. Like, the way they think, the way they act — there's no other way. Like, I have to be Kenyan," she says.

Duality is at the heart of Saint Sinner, both in terms of identity and Wameyo's spirituality. The album is also a highly anticipated debut for the up-and-coming singer-songwriter, rapper and producer.

In this session, Wameyo talks about growing up "a saint" and the relief that comes with letting out some anger. Plus, she explains why being a perfectionist is great when you're creating music, but not so much when you're recording it.

Set List

  • "Journey"
  • "Conquer"
  • "Umva"
  • "River Nile"

This episode of World Cafe was produced and edited by Kimberly Junod. The web story was created by Miguel Perez. Our engineer is Chris Williams. Our programming and booking coordinator is Chelsea Johnson and our line producer is Will Loftus.

World Cafe senior producer Kimberly Junod has been a part of the World Cafe team since 2001, when she started as the show's first line producer. In 2011 Kimberly launched (and continues to helm) World Cafe's Sense of Place series that includes social media, broadcast and video elements to take listeners across the U.S. and abroad with an intimate look at local music scenes. She was thrilled to be part of the team that received the 2006 ASCAP Deems Taylor Radio Broadcast Award for excellence in music programming. In the time she has spent at World Cafe, Kimberly has produced and edited thousands of interviews and recorded several hundred bands for the program, as well as supervised the show's production staff. She has also taught sound to young women (at Girl's Rock Philly) and adults (as an "Ask an Engineer" at WYNC's Werk It! Women's Podcast Festival).