A year ago, Sri Lankan/Canadian artist Duava was celebrating the success of his hit single ‘Colombo Rain’. He’s been making music for years and many of his songs have millions of views and streams but Colombo Rain drew in a crowd of its own; some from the local Sri Lankan community reminiscing their own memories of Sri Lanka’s monsoon and others from the international community for Duava’s incredible vocal range and style. Duava was an artist to watch out for. 

A year since, Duava released his first album on 26th August 2022.  ‘BAHU’ by Duava is an album that pays tribute to his proud Sri Lankan heritage and is a testament to his musical trajectory over the years. In an exclusive interview with Duava, we talk about BAHU, his strong ties with Sri Lanka, and music.

Q    Congratulations on BAHU! What inspired it? 
BAHU is actually inspired by the name and story of ‘Sinhabahu’. My parents taught me the story when I was growing up and it was pretty compelling to me. Sinhabahu with the arms and feet of a lion’s paw was a representation of the Sri Lankan flag. I’ve always had this admiration for the lion and I think it’s because of the flag – it’s the coolest flag. I used to draw it a lot in class. The lion is a really patriotic symbol for Sri Lanka and with everything going on, I wanted to honour that. ‘Bahu’ resonated with my connection with Sri Lanka; even though by passport I’m not Sri Lankan, I am still very much Sri Lankan at the core and I’m with Sri Lanka always. 

Q    BAHU sounds special. What do you want your listeners to get from it? 
BAHU is more than an album to me, it’s even more than just music. What I’m doing is crossing this bridge between the west and Sri Lanka and I really take pride in that. On the western side of the world, there are not really many artists that are Sri Lankan and kind of pushing the barrier outside of Sri Lanka. And it’s a privilege and an advantage that I have living in a country [like this] that I can bring Sri Lankan music to the west. BAHU is an album that represents me culturally in an urban way. The album has a lot of songs that are R&B and western pop but there are also songs that are incorporated with the Sinhala language and eastern influences. When I made these songs I thought that, since I had music that has both of these sounds and I’m someone who was influenced by both of these cultures, I wanted to make one body of work that incorporated both of them and that’s how BAHU came about.  

It’s a piece that took a long time, like the Mona Lisa for example. The Mona Lisa took years to make but when it came out, it was admired even after the artist died. I wanted to make something like that.  

Q    Do you feel like you’ve achieved that with BAHU? You’ve made something people will remember forever? 
Well, I’m not going to sit here and say I made the Mona Lisa…. I’ll let other people decide that. But the album is amazing. 

Q    Last time we spoke, Colombo Rain was your favourite song. Has it been replaced? 
The album has 14 songs and they are all better than Colombo Rain! The album is good, really good.  One of the tracks ‘Why We Here’ is really special and sentimental to me. Why We Here was written on the backdrop of everything that was going on in Sri Lanka and at the very surface level it means that we are going to make a change. That we are here not to fix the problems that were there before us but to fix the problems that will come to us. And it’s a song for anyone out there that thinks that there is no purpose in life and that there is nothing going on in their life that there is a purpose and we are supposed to just do our best to make this a better place. 

Q    Why We Here brings us back to your strong ties with Sri Lanka. Over the year, you’ve been very empathetic towards the situation in the country, you even released a song called ‘Lions Forever’ in support. 
Of course. I mean, I don’t even know where to start. The situation is heartbreaking and devastating. 
I’m able to sit here and live a very safe, insulated lifestyle while the people of my blood are having a difficult time right now. Lions Forever was released in support of my people and as a reminder that I do this music for them. That all of us Sri Lankans around the world are nothing without this country. 

Q    The past year also saw you make your entry into the Sinhala music genre with your very own songs in Sinhala.  
Yeah, I wanted to make a very dramatic entrance into Sri Lanka with a Sinhala song and that’s what I did. I kept releasing English songs again and again and then boom! I released a song ‘Anduru Yaame’ with LJ and DKM. The very next day the song was on the Top 100 on Apple Music. I really wasn’t expecting it. Then I continued to make more Sinhala songs. But of course, I don’t know a lot of Sinhala so writing lyrics was tough. I came across this kid called Didula who did a cover of Anduru Yaame and we linked up and while I made the melodies and the music, he would write the Sinhala lyrics. We made a lot of songs together and he wrote two more songs for BAHU.  Incredible guy, very talented. But yeah, venturing into Sinhala music has been great. I love those songs and the response has been insane. 

Q    A lot has changed for you since we last spoke; verified artist, new music, new genres, new collaborations and now your first album. What was your turning point? 
For me, this is nothing. What’s happened to me over the last year is nothing. I haven’t even scratched the surface of what my potential holds. But if I were to say one thing that really helped me was tapping into making Sinhala music and making music that really excited the Sri Lankan community. Because when I put music out in Sinhala, in Sri Lanka people were like, ‘damn, this guy is a monster, he is crazy!’. People listened to my music and freaked out wondering - who is this white guy singing in Sinhala?! That’s something that really helped me a lot because it just encapsulated the energy of where I come from. 

Q    With BAHU out, anything in the pipeline? What’s next for Duava? 
Nothing specific. I’ve been focusing on making sure that everything is perfect. I want to show that this is real singing, no additives, that’s the type of music I’m interested in putting out.  For me, it’s important to make sure that everything is the way that I hear it in my head because that’s what I do – I take stuff from my head, put it on, and put it out to the world.

Pix Courtesy: Duava