Lumi Pelz Affirms The Heartwrenching Power of Love on “Dreams”

Women have contributed to the rich history of contemporary Afrobeats. One can’t possibly unravel the movement’s sounds and stories through time without the efforts of artists such as Asa, Tiwa Savage, Yemi Alade, and Simi — all of whom have expressed a unique, sensuous angle on the aural mosaic that is popular Nigerian music. 

For the current era’s cache of rising artists like Lumi Pelz, born Benita Oluwapelumi, there’s ostensibly a vast reference of inspiration to draw from. Some take from the energetic, pop-driven burst of style, for which Yemi Alade and, to a lesser extent, Tiwa Savage explore. Others are the sojourners of the soul, the poets of heartthrob and desire, and all the several unnamed emotions in between. 

Listening to Dreams, the new single from the Lagos-based Lumi Pelz, she plays with a butterfly’s effervescence across both styles. You’d take note of the vibrance of the production, a bubbly presence that wraps the record’s space like a hug. With brooding notes floating in and out of the central space, a dream-like effect emerges, which beautifully sets up the love-led direction of Lumi Pelz. 

Quite in tune with the love tradition within Afrobeats, the artist’s obvious ear for R&B takes the record into more mellow sections of perception. “Your smile dey console / even when I dey alone na your smile dey hold me,” she sings in the opening lines of the record, establishing the doe-eyed affection the character espouses in just about two minutes. 

It’s a song that quickly grows on one, but this doesn’t mean the initial listens aren’t rewarding. Beyond the well-wrought production, Lumi Pelz shows her strength as an impressive singer-songwriter, easily switching between modes to relay the familiar feeling of wanting a nice moment to last forever. 

She does this in a way her forebears would be proud of, thereby stamping down her name as one for the general public to watch out for. There’s something here, that much is sure.