After three years away from releasing new music, London-based multidisciplinary artist Alewya has resurfaced with a bold new chapter, unveiling her latest single Night Drive (Feat Dagmawit Ameha), out now via Because London Records. For an artist whose career has always blurred the boundaries between sound, movement, image and heritage, this moment marks more than just a return, it signals a rebirth.
Alewya Demmisse, known mononymously as Alewya, has always carried a story shaped by movement across continents. Born in Saudi Arabia to a Sudanese-raised Egyptian father and an Ethiopian mother, she spent her earliest years in Sudan before arriving in the United Kingdom as a young refugee. Growing up in West London, she absorbed the city’s electronic and alternative scenes while staying grounded in African and Arab traditions, a duality that has defined her creative world ever since. Even her name, meaning “the highest” in Amharic, suggests an artist reaching beyond the ordinary.
Her breakout arrived in 2020 with Sweating, a track produced by Busy Twist and mixed by drum and bass figurehead Shy FX, who would later become her executive producer.
The release introduced not just her music but her visual identity, with the song’s video incorporating her own illustrations and design. A guest feature on Little Simz’s Where’s My Lighter soon followed, placing her within the next wave of British innovators. By early 2021 she had released The Code, a collaboration with acclaimed drummer, composer and producer Moses Boyd. The two later brought the track to life in a striking live performance, further solidifying her reputation for blending rhythm-led experimentation with emotional precision.
That same year, Alewya’s wider talents as a visual creator came to the fore. She appeared in the short film Tall Are The Roots by director Fenn O’Meally and released her debut EP Panther In Mode, a project that fused Afro-electronic percussion, alternative club textures and her own sculptural and painted aesthetics. A COLORS performance of her track Ethiopia cemented her growing international presence, followed by appearances at Boiler Room Berlin, Glastonbury and a UK tour supporting Little Simz.
Modelling also became part of her public story. Discovered by Cara Delevingne while dancing on the set of Kids In Love, she was soon introduced by Vogue as a “new model obsession”, walking runways for DKNY at Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week. Yet Alewya never shifted away from the artistic core that drives all her work. Music, painting, illustration and movement are not separate disciplines for her, but interconnected tools for expression.
Now, with Night Drive (Feat Dagmawit Ameha), she opens a new artistic door. Written and demoed on her own before longtime collaborators Craigie Dodds and Dean Barratt brought it into focus, the track leans into Detroit house influences and the foundational lineage of Black electronic music. Built on a hypnotic blend of electronic pulses and alternative R&B tones, the single carries an undercurrent of her Ethiopian roots threaded through a futuristic London sensibility.
Alewya describes this new period as the shedding of an old skin, and Night Drive feels like the sound of an artist stepping fully into her next form. The production leaves deliberate space, allowing her voice to glide between grit, sensuality and quiet authority. Lines like “Ride the car like a big big truck” arrive as declarations of intent, bold, playful and commanding.
The single is accompanied by a cinematic video directed by Taichi Kimura, filmed during Alewya’s recent trip to Japan. Moving through neon-drenched streets, humid dance floors and the quiet glow of a taxi ride, the visuals evoke the sense of freedom, curiosity and reinvention that defines her latest work. It is a glimpse into the larger creative world she has been constructing behind the scenes, one she hints will become increasingly multi-layered in the months ahead.
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