8/10

There's a simple act of rebellion at the heart of 'How Will It Be'. After years of making music alongside other people, Bashir Billow stepped into a Copenhagen basement studio alone and crafted a debut album that feels wonderfully instinctive.

Across this ten-track collection, the Somali-Danish artist lets alt-R&B, dreamlike pop, experimental electronics and organic instrumentation bleed into one another without worrying about where one ends and another begins. Field recordings sit beside hand-played instruments; electronic textures flicker around melodic songwriting; while traces of ambient music, Somali pop, UK garage and jungle surface without ever turning the record into a genre exercise.

Previously released tracks ‘Solitaire’, ‘Violet’, ‘Mirrors’ and ‘Hey Talk’ offer different entrances into that world, but the album’s real achievement is the sense of personality binding everything together. Comparisons to Dijon, Nick Hakim and Frank Ocean make sense, yet his own dynamic production increasingly feels governed by his own internal logic rather than somebody else’s blueprint.

Memory, family and belonging repeatedly surface as he attempts to understand not simply how others perceive him, but how he sees himself. The discovery of recordings featuring his uncle Mohamed reciting Somali poetry adds particular depth. But rather than being seen as a decorative reference to heritage, those voices become part of the album’s search for meaning, connecting personal uncertainty with questions of inheritance and responsibility.

Recorded over eighteen months at Kapelvej 44, the album feels intimate without becoming insular and adventurous without announcing its experimentation too loudly.

Beautifully textured and deeply considered, 'How Will It Be' is less about Bashir Billow presenting a finished identity than discovering one in real time. It's an uncertainty that gives the album its magic, as he follows instinct into the unknown and emerges sounding unmistakably like himself.