Hey, I’m Sarah Isabella, an artist from Newham, East London. Growing up in a really musical home with my parents always writing songs and playing instruments, I started writing and singing as far back as I can remember.
Making my debut EP, The Keeper, has been a huge deal for me. Every song tells a story from my life, ending with the title track “The Keeper.” It took over two years to put together, and there were definitely times I wondered if it would ever see the outsides of the archives.
I’ve been working with my producer, Tolu, since 2018 and he has produced every song on the project. Every day in the studio, Tee would show me what he’s been working on, and we’d build on the ones we loved or sometimes build from the beginning. What I love about working with Tolu is that after all this time, we’re so in sync musically. He always gets what the songs need, and it makes me feel so comfortable, letting me do my best work.
The Keeper is like a snapshot of my life over the last two years. It’s raw and honest, and I hope people can connect with it and take something away from it. I started writing it I when I was experiencing quite a long stretch of disconnection. I remember constantly losing time, not remembering long journeys, periods of being on autopilot and spiritual numbness. To try and find myself again, I just started writing, and before I knew it, the EP began to take shape.
Living in a place where life never stops, even when your own world does, and seeing people lose themselves, I wanted my music to bring me closer to myself and hopefully help others to do that too.
I wrote a lot of the songs with my brother, I find it hard to write with other people so if i’m not writing alone, I’ll usually write with him. He always takes the melodies of the song’s to places I can’t find by myself. That makes this project even more special to me. Not only does it feel like coming into myself, but having these songs released that include some of the musicians inside my household that I grew up admiring, feels almost poetic.
After I wrote the final song “The Keeper,” I took it to my dad and asked him to play it on guitar for me. We recorded it at home in my room, I didn’t know if it would be ‘clean’ enough or if he would even have the patience for the recording process as he hasn’t recorded in years… but it ended up being perfect.
It means so much that he’s on the record. I grew up with my dad playing guitar like it was a part of him. Every strum he played expressed who he was in that moment. You can see his heart in everything he played. The music in my house was equal parts, rocky, smooth, gritty but always soulful. This song needed all of that.
Putting this EP together has really helped me find who I am as an artist. Songs like “Only You,” written when I was struggling with imposter syndrome, and “Purple Skies,” one of my favourite songs on the project, travels through grief and loss, all the way to “Higher Than Home” and “The Keeper,” which talk of coming to a place of discovery, a deeper self knowing, and beyond that, an unwavering understand that I am worthy of the ‘dreams’ and things that I desire and envision for myself
I couldn’t have done it without Tolu, Fuzzbrain Studios, and all the incredible musicians who helped out. There were times I thought this project would never be finished, so finally sharing it feels surreal. It’s helped me build not just my artistry, but a community, and I’m super excited for what’s coming next.
Listen to The Keeper below, and stream it elsewhere here.
Words by Sarah Isabella // Follow her on Instagram
