Awa Manneh

Awa debuted on the music scene in 2002 with the single ”Shook, shook, shook” in early 2002. which was followed by singles ”Behind Schedule (Can I get a witness) and Hip Hop Ballad which both played on heavy rotation on both the radio airwaves and TV.

The full length album ’Sounds Like Me’ was released in September the same year. It contained producer collaborations like Mark Hill (The Artful Dodger, Craig David)  on the song ”Look at me” and Christian Falk (Robyn, Blacknuss, Neneh Cherry) on the songs ”Shook, Shook, Shook” and Behind Schedule (Can I get a Witness). 9 out of 13 tracks were written and produced by Awa herself, a natural progression after noticing she also heard the arrangements in her head when writing the songs. The tracks on the album were mostly written in the period of a few years before the release, but one track stands out as it was written when she was only 13 year of age – the track ”Weren’t we down”. A song about love lost while finding the strength to move on. A precautious subject from a precautious young girl at the time. The title to the album was a last minute decision as Awa hadn’t really had time to ponder on this detail while finishing the final details of the production, working tirelessly around the clock to meet the deadline. She says it came when she was asked what it sounds like, or rather – who? A question she’d been asked multiple times before which she couldn’t really relate to or answer. She said ”it doesn’t sound like anybody, it sounds like me”.

Awa received 3 Swedish grammy nominations for ’Sounds Like Me’- Best Hip hop /Soul, Best newcomer and Producer of the year as well as 2 Rockbjörnen nominations (People awards) for Best female artist and Best newcomer.