Tommy WA releases new EP Hope Our Paths Cross

Tommy WA has released a new EP, Hope Our Paths Cross, out now via Dirty Hit.

The Nigerian-born, Ghana-based songwriter, and former documentary photographer, built the project around ideas of community and kindness that run through his wider catalog. "the communal pursuit of happiness" is what drives the project, he said, describing years spent building an audience of listeners who identify with the things he says and how he says them.

On the EP's standout track, "Alleluya (Another World)," Tommy contemplates fulfillment and faith over gentle instrumentation, a song he says wins over even his harshest critics, his own nephews, despite their playlists otherwise running to children's music. "It's quite morbid, but we're all chasing these things that do not really preserve our souls," he said of the song's premise, framing kindness and love, for others and for yourself, as "the currency, nothing else."

A childhood spent on the move, along with an early interest in politics, shaped his approach to songwriting, filtering sociological observation through poetry and performance to make folk music that crosses language and culture while staying rooted in his own African experience. Visuals from his earlier photography career still inform that storytelling, which he says he wants to keep distinctly African in perspective.

After the EP, Tommy plans an African tour running west to east, though he says he feels most at home busking on the street, preferring long, open-ended sets to the fixed 30-minute slots of formal venues. He also has European dates booked this fall, including Glasgow's Poetry Club SWG3 on October 21, Manchester's The Abbey on October 23, Bristol's The Louisiana on October 27, London's Waiting Room on October 28 and Brighton's Folklore Rooms on October 29.

Hope Our Paths Cross adds to a run of new indie folk releases tracked on the release calendar this year.