South X Lullaby: L.A. Salami

British singer Lookman Adekunle Salami performs "Day To Day (For 6 Days A Week)" at SXSW 2017.
By Lars Gotrich
L.A. Salami sings and fingerpicks his acoustic guitar like an old truck winding through windswept blue highways. The British artist's debut album Dancing With Bad Grammar was one of Bob Boilen's top 10 albums of last year, saying it was a "hidden gem in 2016."
Standing on the smoking balcony of a hotel overlooking Austin's downtown skyline, L.A. Salami plays "Day To Day (For 6 Days A Week)" for a small crowd just before midnight. It's a fidgety folk song that works through boredom on public transportation and gruesome deaths on the news, sometimes wrapped up in a love interest that doesn't seem to notice. "Six days a week, can't find my bearings / But to be fair I might of cared / Might of cared if you were there." At the end of the night, a long exhale of the day.
Credits:
Producers: Bob Boilen, Mito Habe-Evans; Director/Videographer: Nickolai Hammar; Audio Engineer: Josh Rogosin; Executive Producer: Anya Grundmann;