Under dim yellow lights with guitar in hand, Ore Tejuoso ’21, a member of the music Arts Concentration program and the founder and vocalist of the student band Orange, performed her first single, “You,” in its official behind-the-scenes video. With a passion for singing since her childhood, Tejuoso made her debut as an indie singer under the stage name Luwa on December 1.
Tejuoso started her songwriting process for “You” with a basic chord progression. As she replayed the piano chords over and over again, she began to uncover an original melody that she felt a personal connection with. Once she composed the melody, she started humming the chords and wrote down words that spontaneously came to her mind, even jotting down made-up words and gibberish as long as they evoked emotions from her. “As I write the song, I don’t really know what the song is about. I just know the way the music makes me feel,” Tejuoso explained.
After she finished writing the song, Tejuoso reviewed the lyrics and revised words and phrases to create a more cohesive piece. “The song reflects what I feel at the moment. When I look back at my lyrics, sometimes they represent my week or my year, or whatever that has been in my subconscious mind that I was not paying attention to,” Tejuoso said. “Those feelings turn out in my writing.”
Tejuoso recalled that it was a rainy day when she was writing “You,” and her inspiration from the mellow weather manifested itself in the calm, steady mood of the song. Tejuoso shared that if it was a very sunny day and she played the same chord progression, a completely different song could have emerged.
The purpose of “You,” Tejuoso explained, is to invite listeners to think about the moment when they realized that their love for someone else was strong enough to overcome any conflict or disagreement. “Even if you have an intense fight with your sibling, you know that your sibling is still your sibling. You wouldn’t worry about losing them. But finding this feeling with someone else in the world beside your family is a beautiful experience,” Tejuoso said.
When recording “You,” Tejuoso was contacted by a professional music studio and traveled to Hollywood during the spring break of last year to work with them. There, she was able to connect with other producers and music engineers who helped her create the backtrack for the song and invited professional pianists and violinists for specific sections. “It was overwhelming at times, but I was happy that I can be with a team that has collaborated with some of the artists that I look up to, such as Summer Walker,” Tejuoso said.
In addition, Tejuoso shared that Usher was recording in the same studio as her, and she was starstruck to hear Usher singing in the adjacent room. Tejuoso was also recording in the same exact booth where Michael Jackson had recorded his album Bad nearly 35 years ago.
“I wrote so many songs before I was reached out to. Oftentimes when I was writing my song, I wondered: ‘Am I working for nothing?’ I go to Choate and I’m a hardworking student, but all these factors seem to pull me away from becoming an artist,” Tejuoso said. “However, being there and working with those professional people, I felt that everything is coming together, I felt that this is happening, and it is becoming something serious.”
For Tejuoso, singing has been an inseparable part of her life and identity for as long as she can remember. Though she has always been passionate about and interested in songwriting and composing, Tejuoso had been wary of writing songs due to fears of creating a piece she isn’t completely satisfied with.
“I knew how much I love music, and the idea of making a song that wasn’t as good as the music that I listen to just scared me. Being a perfectionist, it’s either a hundred or a zero in my mind,” said Tejuoso. However, in the second week of her summer program at the Berklee College of Music two summers ago, she decided to let go of her worries and just experiment with writing.
Looking back at the day when she wrote her first song, Tejuoso realized that songwriting was not as difficult as she expected, and she profoundly enjoyed the process from start to finish. “What I’m so happy about what I did was that I didn’t care. I just wrote a song and I really love it,” Tejuoso said.
As an indie artist, Tejuoso is mainly gaining exposure through social media such as Instagram and YouTube. All information about her music can be found on her professional website, luwa.hearnow.com. “You” is available on major music streaming platforms, and the official music video will be released on the Luwa Youtube channel today.
Tejuoso traveled to Hollywood to record her debut single “You.” Photos courtesy of Ore Tejuoso
