Album Review: Dunya by Mustafa

Mustafa has carried himself in esteemed company for a while. Collaborators on Dunya include Aaron Dessner, Rosalía, Daniel Caesar, Clairo and Nicolas Jaar, as well as creative director Ramy Youssef. But it's his world we are invited into, filled with lush islands exploring faith, death, trauma and more. Novelistic, here, does not mean overbearing or needlessly complex - with one exception, the songs here don't cross the four-minute mark.

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To some, Mustafa is now best known as an activist. Piecing two incredible shows on either side of the Atlantic, he was joined by everyone from Earl Sweatshirt to Faye Webster, FKA twigs to King Krule. To most, this was a once-in-a-lifetime show - astonishingly, Mustafa did it twice over. There's still the question, though, of his art.

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They say all art, whether intended or not, is a self-portrait. That axiom, broad as it is, applies to music perhaps more than any other medium, as music channels emotion through concrete and abstract means. In this light, Canadian poet and singer Mustafa's Dunya emerges as a stunning work of autobiographical reflection. Characterized by its vivid specificity and profound depth of feeling, Dunya takes the shape of a traditional folk album, infused with a rich blend of cross-cultural influences woven into its sonic DNA.

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