Dwin, the Stoic is in fact, not a stoic.
The Nigerian Alternative artiste attributes the name to a Mumford and Sons’ song, Reminder, off the band’s second album Babel, released in 2012. In his offhanded way of telling these things, Dwin cites the four man British band as a favorite of his.
Dwin, the Stoic had wanted to be a part of a band. In 2017, he put out a call on Twitter, seeking like-minded individuals with whom he could start up a band. The group, as he conjectured, would be a sort of brain child, a cumulative from the collectives of Mumford and Sons, Odd Future, and Kenyan boy band Sauti Sol.
Two persons he’d met at the 2015 Aké Festival (an annual literary held in Nigeria) expressed interest and the Ignis Brothers was born. Pay no mind to the name however: there’s a female band member, Ruth. She was actually the one to suggest the name to the other two members who comprised of Dwin and Lamide, a multi instrumentalist.
Before then, Dwin had been writing songs for over a decade, drawing influences from a wide variety of artistes which includes The Oriental Brothers, Chris Okotie, The Beatles, Brenda Fassie, and many others of the ilk. His father, a disc jockey, had to scrape through university and money paid to him after playing music at events got him by. Naturally, young Dwin was enchanted by the music around him, at home and everywhere else. At the time Dwin started writing music in 2007, he was a university undergraduate himself. He took an online course on songwriting to develop his technique — a decision which must have expanded the horizons of his learning, taking him beyond the form of music in which prior to then, he was self–taught in.
This influence of multiple cultures as it regards creating music is a narrative steady gaining ground in the Nigerian music scene, sneaking up on the mainstream, probing the surface for space to shine, questioning the establishment. In a song like “Stay With Me”, the folk qualities are inherent, but on a lucky day you might hear it in a Lagos wedding, its heartwarming R n’ B features impossible to miss. Just as the Odunsis and Santis are incorporating international music and experiences into the Nigerian’s, so is Dwin, whose songs are often grounded in a setting so Nigerian and yet universal; the themes of sadness, death, and longing: one which everyone can stake claim to.
Dwin, the Stoic was a shy person. This isn’t discernible when he’s talking at length about his music and the music he loves but as he says, when starting out, he was a recluse, mentioning that “After putting “The Lonely”, I would seldom mention it. I was very shy; that’s why it took so long to get out there.” That song (featuring another emerging “Herbal Music” singer, 3rty) marked the beginning of what would be an ever-progressive career, and the release of an album that would go on to be one of the finest debut projects in its release year and probably stretching half a decade back.
On a 2017 day, 3rty, who would later become the executive producer of Heavy Heart received a phone call from Dwin, who lived close to the producer’s then-home in Isolo (in Lagos), asking for the availability of a nearby studio to record “Ghost”, a song he (Dwin) had written. Then, something happened. Quite the revelation it must have been to Dwin, that he’d been writing music for over a decade and he needed a “songwriter’s résumé”. “It just felt right to drop a whole project,” he says.
What would follow after that was a compilation: Dwin sought out songs he’d previously written and beat them into shape, fitting them into a body of work with a heavy heart. When I asked if he writes sad songs intentionally or just finds himself making them, he answered in a nod to the latter option. “I would say I find myself writing them. I usually just start writing songs and these usually take that turn. Personally I think it could be my subconscious, and in some cases it is. I love it, I encourage it because why not? Sometimes I have particular stories I intend to tell and so I drive myself in that direction. Sometimes, I just allow the muses take control. Usually, they go sad, I don’t know why.”
Listen to Heavy Heart below:
Heavy Heart, in a far-off gaze, plays into a grander scheme of things. But close up, it shows the protagonist who begins his journey in a church (“Are You The One?”), asking the tough questions of existentialism and wanting answers. According to Dwin, “An earlier version of the song was watered down – I didn’t want to ask much questions because that would be too divisive.” But later on, he got brave and asked them anyway.
The protagonist might as well as been Dwin, who says the loss of his sister inspired the song. For the protagonist, real problems come: his girlfriend seeks to leave him. Had our guy been a “One Ticket”-esque Kizz Daniel, the story of “Take Flight” would be different. But he begs the lady to stay. And she does but, she isn’t there. He is “The Lonely”, who, even she holds his hand, he still feels alone. The relationship has shifted from a well balanced tripod stand to a shaky one, one with a deformed leg. “Of Us” asks the question often deployed to comical effect in Nigerian spaces: what are we? What have we become? What is left of us?
The next track of Heavy Heart, “Happy Song”, is one Dwin says to be pivotal in the central arc of the story. Apparently, one thing leads to the other and the lady dies, after a physical altercation with the protagonist. Dwin’s leaden vocals on the song relays the overwhelming emotion of grief that has come over him. In “Ghost”, it’s payback time for him – she comes to haunt. The song however, has been interpreted differently by different listeners, with the most popular theory being the song is about the metaphorical ghost, the one our protagonist contends with seeing as technically, he killed his woman.
“Pack Your Load”, “End Of An Era”, and “For Those Who Cross My Path” complete the album. (excluding the three bonus songs.) On these, the story is drawn to an end which is set in a church once more, as the protagonist – of the belief that there are people out there plotting some sort of evil against him – prays to God for them, so he doesn’t “basically f*ck [them] up,” Dwin says with a evil and gleeful inflection in his voice.
Since the release of Heavy Heart, Dwin has been sort of quiet. His last single, “Go With Me” is an upbeat song which is carried on the strings of a happy guitar and Dwin’s tempered-but-excited vocals.
“Remember when we used to dream aloud/ We used to say that we would see the world/ But now we’re older and the world is a mess/ And the bills give us stress/ So we keep second-guessing so let’s go and see the world.”
Dwin the Stoic sings of adventure on “Go With Me”.
It is a beautiful song, produced by Rhaffy, who did something similar on “To All Of The Girls”, a heartbreaking letter of a song carried on the creaky wheels of a solo guitar.
“Go With Me” has attracted prominent admirers, like the former X3M Music star Simi. Of her public recognition of his song, Dwin recounts the surreal event, one he deems a highlight of the year already. “I stayed up all night trying to get the song on all platforms and I slept like 7AM and then I couldn’t really sleep and then by 11AM I wake, and I see on my phone ‘Simisola sent you a message’ and I see she shared my song. It was amazing.”
While this is a validation of Dwin’s steady steps up the hill of making it as an alternative artist in Nigeria, his reply to a related question was a gracious painting of how tall this hill is. He brings up the name of popular Street-Hop artist Small Doctor to make an analogy. While the teeny voiced act had developed a cult following from the streets for which and in which he makes music, “Penalty” was “the song”.
For an artiste like Dwin, The Stoic however, “the song” is hard to come by, and definitely not for a lack of talent. “It’s easier for music like that to move far because of the many outlets,” He says, “Of course, not in a Nigerian party anyway, will you be looking to hear “Stay The Night”.
This doesn’t mean Dwin, The Stoic hasn’t cultivated a following of his own. Already, Heavy Heart has garnered critical acclaim and his ever increasing fan base connect with him on social media, asking questions, seeking to carve out the man from the Stoic.
Locally, Dwin, the Stoic performs monthly at Ouida Bookstore, a a literary space in Ikeja, Lagos, founded by Nigerian novelist Lola Shoneyin. Dwin fits into this because he of course, is a poet and a writer. He’ll say it in an understated tone but that doesn’t mean that in 2015, he wasn’t selected for the prestigious Farafina Creative Trust Workshop led by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, who he deems a mentor.
In February 2018, Dwin, the Stoic was part of a group of creatives, We Talk Sound, who released a collaborative album LOFN2: A Collection of Love Stories. The makers of the project never met each other, as Dwin tells me. He was contacted by a leader figure in the collective, Dolapo, and asked if he had anything to contribute. “To All Of The Girls” was turned in. The album’s proceeds went to charity. This collective is in fact, not the only one Dwin associates with. He mentions 3rty, Davina Oriakhi, and most of the artistes on Heavy Heart as part of his “tribe”. He still remains in contact, he tells me, with members of the Farafina writing workshop in 2015 and they work as a literary support system (Dwin may or may not write complete a novel in 2020).
Dwin, the Stoic has plans in motion. Currently, he’s working ‘a lot’ with Rhaffy and there’s an Ignis Brothers’ project in the works; he also performed at the Felabration concert. But as he tells me, these projects will be punctuated by the release of singles. To concretise his type of music, he recognizes the need to shoot more videos. “Almost every song has been written with visuals in my mind,” Dwin says.