Beckah Amani – ‘This Is How I Remember It.’ review: a bold, expressive debut

29 November, 2024

Beckah Amani

For singer-songwriter Beckah Amani, music is a means for finding a home anywhere. Born in Tanzania to Burundian parents, then moving to Australia as a child, she made sense of the worlds moving in and around her through songwriting, influenced by everything from her family’s heritage to the Western pop and indie artists she had grown to love.

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Now, on her first full-length album, ‘This Is How I Remember It’, Amani marshals her illustrative storytelling prowess, roots in African folk music, and versatility as a contemporary songwriter to present an impressive body of work. Rooted in excavating the arc of a relationship from beginning to end, the album also tackles other threads in the fabric of modern life, from memory and childhood to politics and injustice.

Amani’s happy place in songwriting is deep diving into a relationship, and she pulls deftly from multiple genres and influences to sketch out this exploration. The sunny, percussive ‘Try For Me’ deploys natural and ambient samples, choruses of voices, and jaunty instrumentation reminiscent of African folk, while ‘Free Fall’ sounds reminiscent of SZA’s work in its slinky, confessional R&B style and willingness to confront difficult emotions like jealousy. Meanwhile, bass and haze swirl around on ‘High On Loving You’, evoking the sweet swooning delivery of Ari Lennox.

Amani’s lyrical talent is affirmed throughout ‘This Is How I Remember It.’, the record brimming with beautiful and impactful lines. “Your stone wall needs a window / Blissful when the wind blows”, goes the chorus on ‘Free Fall’. And following in the tradition she laid down in ‘April’ – her EP of relatable, comforting songwriting – she shares on ‘Call Home’: “It’s already hard / Getting out of bed and showing up in the world”.

The album takes a more serious turn on ‘Sober’, a song draped at first in chill, soulful melancholy but which soon reveals itself to be a powerful, unflinching song about protest and accountability. “Let’s talk about borders and death in waters… Let’s talk about bloodshed / Let’s talk about corrupt governments”, Amani sings over a crescendoing orchestra that calls to mind Little Simz’s ‘Introvert’, which shares the same producer as ‘Sober’ (Jakwob). Directing her imaginative and evocative lyricism into one particularly poignant line, Amani declares with a flourish: “History doesn’t start when you start to pay attention / No more thoughts and prayers.”

More than anything, what stands out most on this album is Amani’s voice, a rootsy, freewheeling thing. Flying high over the peaks of ballad ‘We Ain’t Here’ and breathing life into the gentle piano number ‘Grow With You’, it carries a depth of feeling and a raw storytelling texture in its tremors and undulations. Her voice is the throughline of the ‘This Is How I Remember It.’, grounding the project in a vulnerability and authenticity delivered straight from Amani’s heart.