Ak and Ej Odjighoro of dual duo KAIRO take us track-by-track via their daring, breathtaking debut album ‘ARE WE THERE YET?’ – a defining musical assertion that’s as soulful and seductive as it’s really, undeniably lovely.
Stream: “BRAND NEW” – KAIRO
The imaginative and prescient for this document was to inform our story as immigrants, as Black males in America, and as younger males experiencing the world.
As smooth and seductive as it’s daring, brash, and really lovely, KAIRO’s debut album is an simple triumph from two brothers actively – and unapologetically – making their very own mark within the alt-pop music world.
Intimate and weak, emphatic and assertive, ARE WE THERE YET? hits arduous and leaves an enduring impression via dramatic sonics and gorgeous vocal performances soaked in wealthy concord and uncooked emotion. It’s an immersive, charged, and charming assortment that brings its viewers deep into the duo’s world as they spill the contents of their souls in track.
It’ll all be okay in the long run
What you crying for?
Boy, don’t cry no extra
That is simply how the story begins
Earlier than you go
Have a look round
Keep in mind all of the methods you’re feeling
They’ll be higher days and therapeutic
Quickly it’s all gon’ change
Quickly you’ll be taught to imagine it
Takes a bit time to see it
Yeah you’re in your means
When you may await it
Preserve going straight for it
You’ll see gentle
Let it set you free…
– “FRONT LINES,” KAIRO
Launched November 13th, 2024 by way of Def Jam, ARE WE THERE YET? is a defining assertion of arrival and intent from KAIRO.
Lively (in a method or one other) for the higher a part of the previous 5 years, the genre-bending duo of Nigeria-born, Houston-raised, and Los Angeles-based similar brothers Ej and Ak Odjighoro have been capturing ears and hearts via their achingly expressive and equally catchy performances filled with uncooked ardour and breathtaking power.
Atwood Journal beforehand praised KAIRO’s 2022 debut EP Love Letters From Houston as “a sun-kissed document brimming with candy n’ soulful acoustic pop and the enduring energy of affection,” occurring to emphasise their lasting impression on the listener:
“Now and again, an artist comes round with music so fantastically buoyant and effortlessly uplifting that it renews our religion in life and love. It’s arduous to be cynical when listening to KAIRO’s debut EP; merely put, the Nigerian-born twins give us too many causes to smile, to search for, and to see the great throughout us.”
Two years after the double-helping of Love Letters From Houston and its follow-up EP, Return to Sender (launched November 2022), KAIRO’s first full-length album showcases the Odjighoro brothers’ vocal, lyrical, and melodic skills with a extra full-bodied, instrumentally wealthy, and absolutely produced sound. It’s an electrifying evolution for the pair, and one which stays true to their core creative identification whereas additional constructing out who they’re what they’re able to.
And to place it merely, they’re able to a LOT.
“Our debut album is the end result of years’ value of writing, working, and rising as artists,” KAIRO inform Atwood Journal. “It’s the story of our lives – each as younger Nigerian immigrants children coming to America, as younger males experiencing all of the love and heartbreak, and as two brothers working collectively pursuing their shared dream. The title ‘ARE WE THERE YET?’ served as a throughline between all this stuff – asking ourselves, ‘We graduated school and had been capable of make music our full time jobs. Are we there but? We’ve made an album we’re so happy with. Are we there but?’… asking our dad and mom, ‘Are we there but? Have been all of your sacrifices value it. Did we make you proud?’”
“The imaginative and prescient for this document was to inform our story as immigrants, as Black males in America, and as younger males experiencing the world,” the brothers proceed. “We wished to inform our story with sonic elevation from our earlier two EPs, and we predict we did that. And, if we’re being tremendous sincere, we wished each track to sound like a ‘single.’ 13 songs, 13 probabilities to carry individuals to the desk!”
KAIRO candidly describe ARE WE THERE YET? as recent, energetic, and unpredictable. The title, they additional clarify, has been with them now for over two years, and captures a they’ve been asking themselves typically, “Have we made it? Are we engaging in our objectives? Are we there but, and what’s subsequent? And now it’s a rhetorical query to the listener. After you hear, you now know that KAIRO is right here to remain.”
It’s the story of our lives – each as younger Nigerian immigrants children coming to America, as younger males experiencing all of the love and heartbreak, and as two brothers working collectively pursuing their shared dream.
This document additionally serves as a definitive longform introduction to the duo – a mission assertion that goes properly past the music and lyrics of their two EPs, which have a mixed half hour in size.
“ARE WE THERE YET? is the total embodiment of KAIRO,” the duo clarify. “It’s the purest model of ourselves encapsulated in a single album. It blends genres and blurs the traces between pop, different, and R&B, however we nonetheless maintain agency in our roots of melodies and harmonies in each observe.”
Highlights abound on the journey from the album’s cinematic, scene-setting opener “FRONT LINES” to the plush, dreamy, and emotionally tender finale, “MAMA” – a heartfelt musical letter of affection and appreciation to the Odjighoro brothers’ mom.
Between these two sensible bookends lies a seductive smorgasbord of simple expertise distributed between smoldering, soul-stirring R&B-soaked reveries and radiant, rock-fueled fever goals.
Lead single “BRAND NEW” stays a standout on the document, each for the observe’s white-hot, intoxicating power, in addition to its lyrical and emotional substance – unpacking racial identification from a number of views:
First query your dad and mom requested
“is he black or white?”
Prob’ly arduous to digest to they urge for food
Understanding rattling properly they prayin’
that you simply reply “proper”
By no means seein’ eye to eye
askin’ questions like
“Do they sing, do they rap?”
Yeah we do a lil’ each
“The place they from, the place they at?”
From LA to the ‘Gos
“The place is that on a map?”
Do they actually wanna know?
All people increase a glass
and prepare for the toast
All people see me within the room
Whatcha wanna do
What’s your subsequent transfer
Appear to be everyone tryna play it cool
Whatcha wanna do
You actin’ model new
– “BRAND NEW,” KAIRO
“‘BRAND NEW’ is impressed by a relationship I used to be in – my then-girlfriend’s dad and mom, to place it frankly, didn’t approve of me due to my race,” Ak tells Atwood Journal. “We began our debut album period with this track as a result of the story is an underlying theme of the complete album; as Black artists – as Black people – we will all the time should work ten instances more durable, particularly within the different/pop house that hasn’t all the time been probably the most welcoming to guys that seem like us. We’ve received work to do.”
“BRAND NEW” is in good firm throughout ARE WE THERE YET? – from the rip-roaring “ANYBODY HOME?” and its story of the brothers’ immigration to America from Nigeria, and their objectives of being a disruptive drive within the alt-pop house, to the sweaty, feel-good, saxophone-laced “BREAK BREAD” and its exploration of household, relationships, and Nigerian tradition, KAIRO maintain nothing again in sharing their true, unfiltered selves in track – such that, even when a listener can’t relate to a particular facet of the brothers’ lived experiences, they will nonetheless join with them on an emotional, visceral, and human-to-human degree.
“My favourite track off the document must be ‘EVERYTHING YOU WANTED’ as a result of a deeply private anecdote impressed it, and the once we lastly completed it, I felt the manufacturing unlocked one thing in us,” Ak says on the subject of favourite tracks. Pulling parts from R&B and soul, entice, hyperpop, and extra, “EVERYTHING YOU WANTED” aches from the within out from the second it begins and Ak sings, “Heartbreak doesn’t really feel nice while you’re sitting again house throwing filth on my identify.”
In the meantime, Ej cites the fantastically ambient and ethereal breakup track “HANDLEBARS” – one other brutal, intimately emotional internal reckoning – as his favourite. “That track may be very private for me,” he provides. “It was truly one of many final songs we wrote for this album. The album was principally performed earlier than this, however this one got here out of us so simply that we needed to honor that and ensure it had its place on this album.”
The brothers agree that their favourite lyrics are available in “HEAVEN,” the fragile and weak confessional that straight follows “HANDLEBARS” and acts as a follow-up to that track: “However I don’t wanna die a sinner, as a result of I spent all my prayers on you.”
“After questioning a breakup, there’s this sense of realizing you might have considered trying your individual again, which is why we positioned it on the tracklisting right here,” the pair add. “To the purpose the place you’ll even sacrifice them being with another person… if they’d simply maintain a little bit of you in every single place they go.”
“We aspire for listeners to attach deeply with our music, experiencing feelings they could have all the time felt however might not have been capable of articulate,” KAIRO share. “Our favourite music all the time serves as a mirror to us, and we hope that ARE WE THERE YET? can do the identical to a complete new era. This album is crafted for the youngsters who embrace numerous genres and worth genuine artists who share uniquely particular tales. KAIRO goals to be that artist for them.”
Expertise the total document by way of our beneath stream, and peek inside KAIRO’s ARE WE THERE YET? with Atwood Journal as Ak and Ej Odjighoro take us track-by-track via the music and lyrics of their debut album!
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‘ARE WE THERE YET?’ – KAIRO
:: Inside ARE WE THERE YET? ::
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FRONTLINES
“FRONTLINES” is the introduction to our debut album ARE WE THERE YET? and a reintroduction to KAIRO, each in our music and in our storytelling. The album opens with sounds of children enjoying within the park, which we particularly selected as a result of it reminded us of our childhood and a few of earliest recollections of our dad and mom. We come full circle and finish the album with “MAMA.” It’s a reminder to ourselves that via each hardship, there’s all the time a means out to the opposite aspect. And that self perception comes from our household and the way they raised us.
ANYBODY HOME
“ANYBODY HOME?” tells the story of how we immigrated to America from Nigeria and our imaginative and prescient in being a disruptor in different pop. You haven’t seen or heard something like this earlier than – so we wished to carry this power of “Right here we’re…hear up!”
BRAND NEW
“BRAND NEW” is impressed by a relationship I [Ak] was in – my then-girlfriend’s dad and mom, to place it frankly, didn’t approve of me due to my race. We began our debut album period with this track as a result of the story is an underlying theme of the complete album; as black artists – as black people – we will all the time should work ten instances more durable, particularly within the different/pop house that hasn’t all the time been probably the most welcoming to guys that seem like us. We’ve received work to do.
SPECIAL
“SPECIAL” is about that new relationship that you simply soar into, however rapidly understand post-butterflies that the individual doesn’t deserve you, doesn’t respect your boundaries, and it drives you loopy!
PLANS
“PLANS” is about wanting somebody so badly you type of lose your self in them. You type of romanticize your future collectively earlier than constructing the precise basis it takes to get there.
HANDLEBARS
Truthfully, “HANDLEBARS” is the true definition of a breakup track. It’s maybe the emotional standout second off our album. The questions you ask your self, the questions you would like you can ask, and the ideas that cycle via your head. It’s acknowledging that typically you must simply take your palms off the steering wheel and belief the method for what it’s. Generally it doesn’t repay, however we’re all hoping for the one time it does.
HEAVEN
“HEAVEN” is a follow-up to “HANDLEBARS” – after questioning a breakup, there’s this sense of realizing you might have considered trying your individual again, which is why we positioned it on the tracklisting right here. To the purpose the place you’ll even sacrifice them being with another person…if they’d simply maintain a little bit of you in every single place they go.
EVERYTHING YOU WANTED
“EVERYTHING YOU WANTED” turns that damage and ache from a misplaced love into one thing that propels you ahead. You start to know the the reason why parting methods was higher for you each in the long term.
ALL I EVER WANTED
“ALL I EVER WANTED” represents the pendulum of emotions that occur when you find yourself now not with somebody you really liked. In a single second you might be excited in regards to the future you can’ve shared and in one other second you might be reminiscing on the life you as soon as shared.
BREAK BREAD
“BREAK BREAD” explores the thought of household and our Nigerian tradition being on the middle of our lives — really the rock of who we actually are. We’ve been in relationships the place they possibly don’t respect nor care to be taught the particular relationship now we have with our household. It’s a reminder that it’s worthwhile to be genuine in any new relationship that you end up in.
WONDER WHY
“WONDER WHY” was one of many first songs we wrote for the album. We wrote it at a time once we had been each in new relationships and had been additionally getting document deal provides, which is only a wild time to be attending to know one other individual. We rapidly realized you gotta be careful for the true intentions of individuals you let into your life.
BACK FOR YA
“BACK FOR YA” was written about our expertise of transferring from Houston to Los Angeles and coping with a number of the struggles that include that. Two completely completely different cities with two completely completely different power. We wrote it as a reminder to ourselves that we’ll all the time name each locations house due to the best way they developed us into the lads we’re in the present day. Regardless of the place we’re on the planet, we’ll all the time come again house.
MAMA
“MAMA” is a letter to our Mother. We might not be something with out her supporting us in probably the most loving and caring means. She has seen her boys develop into younger males with confidence within the items that she blessed us with, and it’s our obligation to pay our respect and make her proud on this life, and we would like her to know that.
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