Deyaz

One Liner:  Bummer tunes done in a lovely way

Wikipedia Genre: No Wikipedia - bedroom pop, bedroom R&B, depressingcore

Home: London

Poster Position: 5 (27) 
Weekend One Only.
Friday.

Thoughts: Deyaz is a tattoo fan who claims to be a "non-confined musician."  Whatever that is supposed to mean.  I mean, I know that it is likely supposed to show how badass he is because he can't be held into a single style - but then you listen and he's absolutely got a style.  So it just ends up being a dumb thing to say.  He was raised in London, a Jamaican/Syrian kid who shares too much over bedroom pop beats.  Before this solo thing, he apparently played the drums in punk bands in east London, and produced rap tracks.  I wish he was still doing one or the other of those things.

He taught himself guitar as a kid, learning Pearl Jam and Alice in Chains by ear.  These tunes do not sound like someone who claims that as their original background.  More like someone raised on Post Malone.  But he won a scholarship to study at London's Guildhall School of Music (which more than one source called "prestigious"), and turned that into this current melancholy sound.

One album - 2022's WHY NOT.  "Don't Leave, Don't Go" is the top single from that one, with 6.9 million streams.

So simple and yet very powerful.  If you just stop and feel the emotion of what he has going on, it is really lovely.  At the same time, not sure how much I want some sad sack song like that at the Festival - I wanna jam out, brah.  His second-most streamed is "I'll Scream (All the Words)" which has 4.7 millon streams.  Well, there is a normal version with 4.7 million, and then a remix featuring someone named Jessie Reyez that has another million.  This is that duet.

Sure.  That is pretty, and sad, and depressing.  And I don't really want to hear it anymore!  Some of his other songs are more upbeat in tone, like "Helpless," even when the lyrics are a bummer again.  I wouldn't go out of my way for this one.