Uwade Previews Debut Album ‘Florilegium’ With Breezy ‘Call It A Draw’ Single

Singer-songwriter Uwade detailed her debut album, Florilegium, due out on April 25 via Ehiose Records/Thirty Tigers. The Nigerian-born, North Carolina-raised artist also shared the lead single, “Call It A Draw.”

A frequent collaborator and tourmate of Fleet Foxes, Jamila Woods, Sylvan Esso and The Strokes, Uwade breaks out on her own with Florilegium, a Latin word which translates in English to “flower-gathering.”

“I offer these songs as flowers of gratitude to those who have seen me through my life,” Uwade stated. “I share them with the world as a reminder to cherish opportunities for renewal.”

News of Uwade’s premiere LP follows a handful of singles for the artist — who studied classics at Columbia and Oxford — including “Do You See the Light Around Me?” and “The Man Who Sees Tomorrow.”

Uwade captured Florilegium in three studios with three different producers, as press materials noted:

Florilegium came together in three studio sessions broken up over a year and a half. It began in upstate New York in 2022 with Sam Cohen, after she spent a stretch touring heavily in support of Fleet Foxes. Early in 2024, her friend Jon Seale offered her a week at his studio space in New York City, where she further honed her ideas — and then she returned to her home state of North Carolina later that year, finishing the album with Alli Rogers at Betty’s, Sylvan Esso’s sun-soaked studio in Chapel Hill. Uwade felt decisive, empowered, completely in control of her own creative vision.

“Over the past few years I’ve been trying to experiment with my songwriting process a bit more, and this song is one of the fruits of that exploration,” Uwade said of the new Florilegium single. “‘Call It A Draw’ started with a drum loop, a chord progression, and a feeling of restlessness. The creation process was pure, playful, and visceral, relying less on structure and more on improvisation. This approach was really freeing and reflects the sense of release that I feel is central to the project as a whole.”

Watch the Jason Wishnow-directed music video for “Call It A Draw” below:

Catch Uwade live. Scroll down for her itinerary and ticket info.

Florilegium Tracklist:

1. The Place In The Sky
2. Call It A Draw
3. Eventime
4. Harmattan
5. The Second Station
6. Clearer Through You
7. (I Wonder) What We’re Made Of
8. Amenaghawon
9. Lost In Translation