Today, we welcome HAWA to the 4AD family and share with you ‘Wake Up’.

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‘Wake Up’ marks a softer side to the genre-bending rapper/singer’s oeuvre, centring petty ruminations atop a beat by Cadenze (Jorja Smith, Burna Boy) and recorded at long-time collaborator Tony Seltzer’s NYC studio. The song follows a whirlwind period that saw HAWA close Telfar’s Pitti Uomo show, collaborate with British fashion house Burberry and featured in W magazine’s latest music issue alongside Bad Bunny and Saweetie.

21-year-old New Yorker HAWA began her musical career as a pre-teen touring the world as one of the youngest-ever composers for the New York Philharmonic after immigrating from Berlin, where she was born to West African parents. HAWA’s insatiable creativity became stifled by the classical world’s limitations so she broke out, pivoting towards an authentic musical representation of herself. With songs that centre on the women she loves, those who she plays and those who play her, HAWA released her debut EP The One in 2020 via b4 (our sister label). HAWA is currently in the studio working on her debut album.

The artwork for ‘Wake Up’ is by Aya Brown, whose portraits of essential works earned widespread attention from New York Times and Vogue, and who co-starred in HAWA’s video for ‘Frick’ as her partner in crime.