For Dunali, the meeting between Sri Lankan musical traditions and Swedish songwriting begins in the soundscape of the home. In her story about music, tabla drums from Sinhalese family parties exist side by side with Swedish lyrics and modern beats. That combination characterizes her collaboration with producers Astma & Rocwell and songwriter Emelie Walcott, who introduce the single Näckrosbarn and pave the way for DUWA, a five-track EP slated for release in 2027.
Näckrosbarn is presented both as a tribute to Sri Lanka’s national flower and as a song about grief, longing, and being the one left behind. The theme links the project’s cultural references to its emotional core: family relationships and memories that continue to shape a life. In Dunali’s description, heritage is not a separate topic, but rather a part of the language she uses to explore closeness and loss.
She describes the song as a conversation with her father, in which she asks whether he remembers what he said and what they were together. In her story, he becomes a butterfly moving through the scene, settling on a coffee table. This image brings an intimate, everyday environment into a song that revolves around absence. At the same time, it maintains the emotional focus on the relationship, without every detail requiring a literal explanation.
A Shared Language in the Studio
The collaboration with Astma & Rocwell stands out as central to how Dunali translated these personal references into a musical direction. She recalls their first meeting as a feeling of coming home, to Sri Lanka or to Skåne. The shared cultural memories meant she did not have to explain her melodic instincts or the sound she wanted to pursue. Family experiences and the ties to Sri Lanka could instead become the starting point for their ideas.
Walcott’s role complemented this: she helped transform the experiences into song lyrics. Dunali describes conversations where they shared deeply personal memories and recognized kindred experiences from different perspectives. In her account, the songwriter’s ability to gather these fragments and give them linguistic form is emphasized. For a project built on identity and memories, this writing collaboration thus becomes just as important for the artistic foundation as the production.
In the description of DUWA, a sound is depicted where South Asian rhythms and samples from streets and squares meet Swedish pop, rap, and R&B. These elements point toward a project that revolves around both movement and place: the percussion provides a musical foundation, while the sampled environments add a spatial dimension. This is the EP's described orientation rather than an evaluation based on listening to the finished recordings.
Astma & Rocwell, who have worked with the likes of Ison & Fille, Petter, Timbuktu, Karpe, Zara Larsson, and Madonna, describe Dunali’s energy in the studio as a reason to commit to the collaboration. Their account also highlights the role of music as a carrier of life stories across generations. They point to communal music-making in Sri Lanka, where playing and singing bring generations together, and mention trips there as a source of inspiration for the sound of DUWA.
Dunali’s move toward her own material follows several years of performing other artists’ songs on TikTok. Among her previous works are a track produced by John Alexis and a version of Ant Wan's Malaika. With Näckrosbarn as the first single from the new collaboration, the focus shifts to songs rooted in her own experiences. Through DUWA’s five tracks, her voice becomes the explicit unifying link – both as a singer and as a storyteller connecting family memories, cultural heritage, and contemporary Swedish music.
