Aisha Badru

Aisha Badru lets it flow on latest effort Transcendence.

Across the five track EP, Aisha Badru encourages the listener to be kinder to themselves as well as the fragile planet.

While sounding a little like Norwegian duo Airy Met Fairy, the artist’s warm melodic voice drifts through her quest for tranquillity.

Opener ‘Millennial’ gets the record off to a strong start. The track begins with the sound of children playing happily, before easing into gentle acoustic guitar.

Badru takes the listener through that tender age of carefree innocents, when anything and everything was possible, to the grittier perhaps even cynical reality of adult hood and the search for prosperity.
The American sings:

“This is the dawning of our lives, but we’re in debt up to our eyes. Is this the cost to be alive. A slave to bills until we die”.

Throughout the record there’s basic themes of, love, kindness, and reconnecting with the ailing planet. ‘Water’ puts it simply.
The songstress opines:

“People are water they need to be free, they need to explore more where they want to be, we cannot be keepers of anyone’s key, we have to love in a way that sets them free”….


The natural cornerstone of water is continually invoked. Sometimes as a calm free-flowing force (‘Water’) and others as a sustaining power, (‘Forest Green’) H2O is ever present in Aisha’s mind.

The finale ‘Soils Daughter’ doubles down on the natural theme.
It runs with the idea that we come from the same soil as our ancestors, whose legacy we build upon.

With soft harmonious backing singers, lyrics once again bemoan the status quo, before optimistically hoping for unity as if “a band of brothers”, who will stop defiling the natural stage of the earth.



Whether you enjoy the project will likely come down to whether the predominant theme and musical style on show suits your taste Melodically, each track feels relatively stripped back, and, with one or two exceptions, led by acoustic instruments.


The tempo stays consistently slow and calm with a vocal style to match. A little more variety would’ve served to keep proceedings a little fresher.
Certainly not bad, just not to everyone’s taste. The message is a noble and straightforward one of reconnection and respect.

The work joins a seemingly growing list of artists advocating for change and shrugging off the trappings of a rat race driven existence.