Producer and singer Yasmine Dubois has only been making music as Lafawndah for a short time, but already she’s causing ripples worldwide with her intriguing take on pan-cultural avant-world music, while making her mark as a futuristic global electronic adventurist. Influenced by Nina Simone, Grace Jones, Missy Elliot, Kate Bush, traditional Middle Eastern singers, dancehall queens and a modernist take on grime and bass.
Lafawndah co-produced her self-titled first EP, self-released in 2015, drawing influences from zouk, cumbia, grime and UK dubstep. A melting pot of sounds and ideas, there is an addictive and hypnotic buzz running through it that recalls the intensity of a swarm. The critically acclaimed Tan EP followed in 2016, released on Warp, showcased Lafawndah’s ear for highly skilled and precisely crafted production, as well as pained attention to detail with her songwriting. Straddling perfectly the experimental and the accessible without ever compromising, there is a sense of joyful creative abandon mixed with decisive and explicit ideas that informs everything Lafawndah touches.