When the concept of Weekly Music Commentary became a reality, a main goal of mine was to make it inclusive of all styles of music, from all around the world. From my early understanding, I knew that popular music from the United States had made it to every corner of the earth. However, I really wanted my readers to know about music from outside the US. What did the music sound like coming from other places? What styles of music influenced music makers from Europe, Africa, South America and elsewhere? Interestingly, this week is a great example and answer to the previous questions. This week the featured artist is Sweden’s own Sabina Ddumba.
Now before you start with the predictable, “I never heard of her”, take a moment and read the entire post. Once again I am going to introduce you to a very talented artist, and also discuss the music that comes from Sweden.
Sabina Ddumba was born on 23 February 1994 in Fisksätra, Nacka. She is the sixth child out of eight in her family. Her mother is Ugandan. After listening to traditional Ugandan nursery rhymes and songs, she became interested in melody and phrasing. Ddumba has started writing songs since she was 10. In 2008, at the age of fourteen, she joined the Tensta Gospel Choir, and sang with the group for about six years. It was through this choir that she found singing was her vocation.
The combination of Ugandan traditional songs and gospel music started to shape the singer Sabina would become. Would that translate into a career in music? Not impossible. However, with a religious family and a father with academic goals in mind, finding the music industry career would be quite challenging. Now let’s move on to the rest of the story.
Ddumba participated in The X Factor Sverige in 2012. Yes, that’s part of the same talent show franchise started in the UK by producer Simon Cowell. Young Sabina Ddumba was eliminated from the competition, but like so many artists who have been dismissed from The X Factor, she lived to sing and perform another day.
Also in 2012, she sang on fellow X Factor Sverige alum Adam Kanyama’s track, “The Golden Child” and collaborated with the duo Lorentz & Sakarias. In 2013 she sang background vocals for Katy Perry’s single “Walking On Air”, which was featured on Perry’s album, Prism. Then in 2014 she released her first single, “Scarred for Life”. After the release of this single, in 2015 she signed with Warner Music.
After the release of her first single, she followed with a string of platinum singles that were the start of her debut album Homeward Bound. I listened to the entire album a few times in preparation for this post, and I was pleasantly surprised. I was very impressed with Sabina’s vocal abilities and the production. Considering her African and Swedish background, I was expecting something quite different. More of a folk music sound. The album is very good and I wholeheartedly encourage all to download or stream it. One more thing, the entire album is sung in the English language.
Most of us are more familiar with the music of Sweden than we are aware. If you think back a few years, there was a very popular group called ABBA that made us aware of popular musicians from Sweden. The most famous Swedish popular music act of all time is ABBA, composed of members Agnetha Fältskog, Björn Ulvaeus, Benny Andersson and Anni-Frid Lyngstad. After winning the Eurovision Song Contest 1974, ABBA grew to become the dominant pop band of the 70s and early 80s. Their sales figures are disputed but claims have been made of 380 million records around the world, making them the second-most successful group ever after The Beatles.
ABBA marked the beginning of an era in which Swedish pop music gained international prominence, which it maintains today. Excluding the UK, Sweden is the European nation with the most number-one hits on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100: as of 2019, seven songs has reached the #1 position. The first one was a 1974 cover version of “Hooked on a Feeling”, performed by Blue Swede, followed by Abba’s “Dancing Queen” in 1977. Roxette had no less than four number-one hits between 1989 and 1991: “The Look”, “Listen to Your Heart”, “It Must Have Been Love” and “Joyride”, and in 1994 Ace of Base reached the top with their hit “The Sign”.
Sweden’s influence on the international pop music scene has been most evident via a number of heavyweight songwriters and producers. Cheiron Studios, spearheaded by Denniz Pop and his protegé Max Martin, helped Ace of Base become an international success, and then went on to creating some of the biggest hits of Britney Spears, Backstreet Boys, NSYNC and Westlife, to name just a few. Denniz Pop died from cancer in 1998 and Cheiron Studios was closed two years later, but Martin remains a superstar in the industry – only Paul McCartney and John Lennon have written more #1 Billboard hits than Max Martin.
A closer study of Swedish music allows us to see that not just pop music, but musical artists can be found in every musical genre in Sweden. Today, you can even find hip hop artists from Sweden. Rebstar and Adam Tensta are two that are well known and continuing to usher in a developing scene.
As for Sabina Ddumba, she has really just begun to rise in the ranks of musicians from Sweden. However, she is making a name throughout Europe and around the world. Her English followup to the Homeward Bound album is in the works. I believe the young vocalist is on her way to much bigger things. Hopefully Warner Brothers is the label to promote her to the world.
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