At any point in time, we are the remix of our past experiences. This is more or less the premise of Maria Uzor‘s delightfully wonky and boisterous basement raver ‘What U Need”, out today via her own Hey Buffalo Records imprint. Described as a “twisted, groove-infused battle cry for the summer”, the mission she bellows out is abundantly clear: take up thy stroboscope and dance.
Uzor became inspired to pen the song after taking a prolonged social media detox in March. After this long absence, she became more aware of her own image and identity shapeshifting over time, all the way to her days fronting the excellent Sink Ya Teeth to the bleeding edge club sounds she revels in under her own name. Amidst the general sentiment focussing on the more toxic sides of being online too much, it’s refreshing to watch Uzor giving it a positive spin: a celebration of our fluidity and multitudes.
“The tune’s kind of about how you can lose a sense of who you are if you spend too much time on there,“ Uzor comments on the song and the video. “I wanted to play with the idea of one’s identity being in flux so I dressed up as various characters from my previous videos and shot it on my iPhone in the same hallway that “If You See Me” was filmed”.
Listen and watch “What U Need” below.
Buy Maria Uzor’s 2023 debut LP Soft Cuts – out via Castles in Space – here.
Follow her on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook and her official website.
