Texas native Joseph Colby Ewatuya, better known by his stage name TEGA, is a 21 year-old singer-songwriter and jazz vocalist at Berklee College of Music. The hidden talent writes music to inspire others and to raise the awareness of Sickle Cell Anemia, which is an autoimmune disease he lives with. His first record explores the trials and tribulations of learning to love oneself as well as the shortcomings of dealing with chronic illness.

Delivering a soulful and jazz-influenced sound in the vein of Daniel Caesar or Rex Orange County, TEGA self-describes his music as “a mix of Jazz, R&B, and Hip-Hop”. On “Maria V2”, TEGA narrates his mom’s (Elaine Maria) story with his crisp baritone atop jazz piano and drums gently accompanied by subtle guitar licks. Even though it’s a very personal song, it has a relatable and timeless quality to it. A song comparable to his mom, simple, but a gem. Check out the track below and discover his album “BODY” on Spotify and Apple Music.

TEGA is Joseph Ewatuya, a young soul artist from Boston who keeps it real and authentic. A year after his remarkable debut track “Melanin”, which was sampling Billie Holiday‘s “Strange Fruit”, TEGA is back with a new single, “Flesh”, out now via Purple Hearts Records. Once again, it’s a soulful and jazz-infused track where Ewatuya‘s vocal performance is simply stunning. It is so good to hear that young artists like TEGA are still going for live and organic instrumentations. “Flesh”, such as the upcoming album, is mainly focusing on the body as a concept for health and wellness.

About “Flesh”, TEGA detailed:

[su_quote]This song is the reason why I decided to focus so heavily on the “body” as a concept for my album. Flesh is about wanting to find trust in someone who could deeply understand what I’ve gone through living with Sickle Cell Anemia. It’s an autoimmune disease that affects my everyday life and at the time I wrote it, I thought no one really understood what thats like. But through my journey of creating the album, I found that everyone has something – or that one thing – that they struggle with. No one should feel unloved for something they can’t control. So I wanted to relate to people on that level.[/su_quote]

[su_youtube_advanced url=”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hDp5HHJ9Xd8&t=10s”]

You can keep it fresh with TEGA via Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram and re-discover his debut track “Melanin” below.

[su_spacer]