OLIVIA FOSTER, EDITOR-IN- CHIEF
Wartburg student Siwa Dlamini released Friday, Oct. 29, a new song titled “7/11 Freestyle” and the corresponding music video.
Dlamini, who is a third-year economics and business administration major from Eswatini, goes by the stage name Amrig, which stands for “allow my rise into greatness.”
“7/11 Freestyle” is the first single from Amrig’s upcoming project, titled Off-Kilter, which is set to be released in early 2022.
The release of “7/11 Freestyle” is the most effort that Amrig has put into the release of music to date.
“I’ve done a lot of releases and worked on music in the past but I’ve never put as much effort into the marketing until this, so I’m really going the extra mile with this one,” said Amrig.
“7/11 Freestyle” is a song that Amrig wrote with a music video in mind. The video was filmed over the summer and features Amrig going around Chicago performing the song in an animated manner.
“We just went to the city and shot the video with no budget,” said Amrig. “Even with limitations on equipment and what we could do without a lot of money, the video is still what I had visualized it being.”
Even though “7/11 Freestyle” is the lead single for Off-Kilter, it is actually Amrig’s least favorite song on the upcoming project.
“This is one of the songs that’s more playful and not that meaningful,” said Amrig. “I created the song with the video in mind, so it was like I release it with a video or not at all.”
Amrig writes all his music and does as much work to create and promote his work as he can. A small group of friends and professionals help Amrig execute his artistic vision through production and graphics.
“I’m lucky to have people that are willing to help me out. I’ve worked with some of the same producers for different stuff and having friends that can make promotional materials is just so helpful,” said Amrig.
Finding joy in the unexpected is something that Amrig enjoys when making music.
“Sometimes when I’m writing a song or putting a song together, I get the most ridiculous ideas,” said Amrig. “I’ll just go and make a weird sound or whatnot because it’s just the most ridiculous, stupid idea. And then it comes out just absolutely incredible.”
This happened when Amrig watched an interview where J Cole said that Japanese music from the 1980s is incredible to sample. Amrig spent a week digging through Japanese music from that decade and landed on a section of a song that he thought was “crazy.” This ended up making its way into Amrig’s song S’m’r (pronounced summer).
Looking into the future, Amrig hopes of making it big.
“I’m just aiming for as high as possible. I don’t want to just be your everyday artist. I really want to make a mark and go as high as I can go,” said Amrig. “Where I come from back in Swaziland, nobody gets that big. So I’m just trying to break that glass.”
Knight Wire 
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