OneDa practices what she preaches. A woman who thrives on independence, her means of speaking her truth involves elevating those around her. As such, high-powered debut album ‘Formula OneDa’ is collaborative in tone and singular in method, drawing from the full spectrum of system culture while asserting her own identity.
As a queer Black woman from outside London – Manchester, to be precise – OneDa has had to fight to make herself heard. Perhaps that’s why her debut album opens with ‘Let Me In’ – less a plea, and more a demand, it’s the sound of someone relentlessly knocking on the industry’s door, before bulldozing her way in anyway.
A high-octane thriller, ‘Formula OneDa’ is a frenetic, eclectic debut. OneDa’s rise was closely tethered to the DNB scene, and the crunching breakbeats that permeate ‘Leader’ for example serve to lift her voice higher. There’s real breadth here, though – ‘The Formula’ utilises a minimalist framework against a performance more akin to spoken word; ‘Raised’ sits in the UK hip-hop lineage, while ‘Sometimes’ seems to point to her Nigerian heritage.
Somewhere within all those influences – and more – is where OneDa resides. She’s joined by an excellent crew, too; a riveting PRIDO on the thrilling ‘Over My Dead’ Body’ or an urgent Princethekid on grimy roller ‘Pull Up’.
In the end, however, only one voice truly counts. OneDa leads from the front, closing the album with a daring triptych of performances. ‘The Western Way’ is an intelligent, multi-faceted critique, ‘Superwoman’ rolls flow upon flow in a daring execution of technical skill, and the zero gravity ‘Set It Off’ seems to float upwards towards the cosmos.
A succinct declaration of independence, ‘Formula OneDa’ finds the Manchester rapper nailing down her testament – she implores you to listen.
7/10
Words: Robin Murray
