Albums

Dan Lu – This Is Me (Album)

Some albums introduce themselves with a statement, and This Is Me from Dan Lu does exactly that, putting the artist’s own identity at the centre before any song is played.

Think about when people say those words in real life. A young man says them to his family after choosing a career they did not expect. A woman says them at a wedding table when an uncle keeps asking why she is still doing things her own way. In Nigeria we have our own versions, like “na so I be” or “this na who I be”, said with a shrug that means take it or leave it. It is a plain declaration, and it carries a lot of confidence.

What makes it interesting as an album title is the scale. A single song can be about one feeling, one night or one person. A full project has room to show many sides of the same artist, the playful side, the serious side, the one that is tired and the one that is ready to dance. Naming the whole body of work after a statement of identity suggests that the listener is being given a fuller picture, not a single mood.

That is why a title like This Is Me tends to work well on a debut or a defining project. It invites people to judge the music as a portrait, and it puts the artist’s voice and choices in front of everything else. I will leave the details of the tracklist to the listener, because discovering them in order is part of the fun.

It is a good project to start on a quiet weekend morning, when you have time to sit through a whole body of work and get to know the person behind it.