Local Review: Gavanni — Fever Dream

Gavanni
Fever Dream
Self-Released
Street: 02.06.25
Gavanni = Khalid + Omah Lay

From the moment it’s heard, Fever Dream meets its listener in the stale February winter of Salt Lake City and transports them to a tiki-torched beach somewhere in Nigeria. At least that’s what it did for me — an SLC native — but for someone who actually resides on that beach, Fever Dream might actually sound like Salt Lake to them. Plus, a quick Google can tell you tiki torches are a California-born opulence and perhaps a tacky pipe dream of mine. It’s clear the summer that Fever Dream memorializes is much more than a White Lotus-inspired image. With the first track, “Vibrations,” of his debut album, Gavanni executes this message of authenticity with flying colors.

Gavanni, aka Louis Omogbai, created a concoction of afrobeats and western-style synthesizer, which makes for a hip-hop that’s unique to his person and experience. You can hear it inside the world percussion-y electronic beats. And as Omogbai stands in the album cover, gazing at a lake with Utah hills on the horizon, it’s almost implied that there’s a home within him there in the photo — Nigeria. 

In the third track and first single, “Criminal,” Gavanni boasts in the chorus: “I’m at the top, yeah they see me now / stole the spot like a criminal / don’t free me now / so good so original.” It’s a playful and prideful track, and a look at his streaming statistics backs his point — you really can’t argue with that. On-point production and catchy beats might be food for the algorithm, but Omogbai’s vocals are a star, too. When he’s singing, he’s floating in and out of crystal clear falsettos. And when he’s rapping, a clockable accent shines through.

Can I say it’s also refreshing to visit the basics again with a lyric sheet that’s comprised heavily of love-themes and wooing? With such a desire to be different and stand out, there are so many modern lyricists that exhaust me with thematic intricacies. Perhaps Gavanni had the opposite goal here, hoping to take influence from artists who made famous the repetitive “baby” and “come on” or “turns me on” kind of phrases. Or name-dropping Louis Vuitton for that matter — apparently Omogbai’s woman wears LV and she looks fire? Send her my number. 

Just as I was thinking there was no vulnerability here, the last track “Cold World” dropped a bombshell. Ironically, Gavanni contradicts himself from his previous ego sentiments he (rightfully) made with the opening lyrics: “I wasn’t born to be flexing / how to be a man ‘for I was 13 / grew up fast was my reality / hungry all the time that shit don’t faze me.” After many tracks reminiscing on the joys of African summers (like the magical interlude track “Summer Memories”), this last track plays the reality card. It forefronts the painful parts of life as someone who left home to find another — which is maybe one of the most important messages and experiences to share today. 

I’ve concluded that Fever Dream was one Bad Bunny collab away from flooring me. Not that it needs a famous person or Puerto-Rican flair, but I now await the day when Gavanni invites another artist into his now-established sound, because I think he’ll shine even brighter for it. Fever Dream is a joy of a debut album — one that I would be proud of if I had created it — but it’s not all that Gavanni has in him, and I look forward to hearing what’s next. —Mary Culbertson

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