Ak and Ej Odjighoro of dual duo KAIRO take us track-by-track by way of their daring, breathtaking debut album ‘ARE WE THERE YET?’ – a defining musical assertion that’s as soulful and seductive as it’s really, undeniably stunning.
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 glossy and seductive as it’s daring, brash, and really stunning, KAIRO’s debut album is an plain triumph from two brothers actively – and unapologetically – making their very own mark within the alt-pop music world.
Intimate and susceptible, emphatic and assertive, ARE WE THERE YET? hits exhausting and leaves an enduring impression by way of dramatic sonics and beautiful 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 music.
It’ll all be okay ultimately
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
Bear 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 somewhat time to see it
Yeah you’re in your approach
In the event you may watch for 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 technique 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 equivalent brothers Ej and Ak Odjighoro have been capturing ears and hearts by way of 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,” happening to emphasise their lasting influence on the listener:
“From time to time, an artist comes round with music so superbly buoyant and effortlessly uplifting that it renews our religion in life and love. It’s exhausting 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 nice 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 totally produced sound. It’s an electrifying evolution for the pair, and one which stays true to their core inventive id 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’ price 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 these items – asking ourselves, ‘We graduated school and had been in a position to 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 mother and father, ‘Are we there but? Have been all of your sacrifices price 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 needed 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 needed each music to sound like a ‘single.’ 13 songs, 13 probabilities to carry folks 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, various, 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 luxurious, dreamy, and emotionally tender finale, “MAMA” – a heartfelt musical letter of affection and appreciation to the Odjighoro brothers’ mom.
Between these two good bookends lies a seductive smorgasbord of plain expertise distributed between smoldering, soul-stirring R&B-soaked reveries and radiant, rock-fueled fever desires.
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 id from a number of views:
First query your mother and father requested
“is he black or white?”
Prob’ly exhausting 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?
Everyone increase a glass
and prepare for the toast
Everyone see me within the room
Whatcha wanna do
What’s your subsequent transfer
Seem to be all people 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 mother and father, 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 music as a result of the story is an underlying theme of all the album; as Black artists – as Black people – we will all the time should work ten occasions more durable, particularly within the various/pop house that hasn’t all the time been probably the most welcoming to guys that appear to be 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 power 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 music – such that, even when a listener can’t relate to a particular side of the brothers’ lived experiences, they’ll nonetheless join with them on an emotional, visceral, and human-to-human stage.
“My favourite music off the document must be ‘EVERYTHING YOU WANTED’ as a result of a deeply private anecdote impressed it, and the after 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, lure, 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 residence throwing dust on my title.”
In the meantime, Ej cites the superbly ambient and ethereal breakup music “HANDLEBARS” – one other brutal, intimately emotional inside reckoning – as his favourite. “That music could be very private for me,” he provides. “It was truly one of many final songs we wrote for this album. The album was mainly 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 “HEAVEN,” the fragile and susceptible confessional that immediately follows “HANDLEBARS” and acts as a follow-up to that music: “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 it’s your decision your particular person again, which is why we positioned it on the tracklisting right here,” the pair add. “To the purpose the place you’d even sacrifice them being with another person… if they’d simply hold a little bit of you in all places they go.”
“We aspire for listeners to attach deeply with our music, experiencing feelings they could have all the time felt however could not have been in a position to 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 children who embrace various 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 under stream, and peek inside KAIRO’s ARE WE THERE YET? with Atwood Journal as Ak and Ej Odjighoro take us track-by-track by way of 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 youngsters enjoying within the park, which we particularly selected as a result of it reminded us of our childhood and a few of earliest reminiscences of our mother and father. We come full circle and finish the album with “MAMA.” It’s a reminder to ourselves that by way of each hardship, there’s all the time a approach 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 various pop. You haven’t seen or heard something like this earlier than – so we needed 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 mother and father, to place it frankly, didn’t approve of me due to my race. We began our debut album period with this music as a result of the story is an underlying theme of all the album; as black artists – as black people – we will all the time should work ten occasions more durable, particularly within the various/pop house that hasn’t all the time been probably the most welcoming to guys that appear to be us. We’ve received work to do.
SPECIAL
“SPECIAL” is about that new relationship that you simply bounce into, however rapidly notice post-butterflies that the particular person doesn’t deserve you, doesn’t respect your boundaries, and it drives you loopy!
PLANS
“PLANS” is about wanting somebody so badly you form of lose your self in them. You form 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 music. It’s maybe the emotional standout second off our album. The questions you ask your self, the questions you would like you may ask, and the ideas that cycle by way of your head. It’s acknowledging that generally it’s a must to simply take your palms off the steering wheel and belief the method for what it’s. Typically 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 it’s your decision your particular person again, which is why we positioned it on the tracklisting right here. To the purpose the place you’d even sacrifice them being with another person…if they’d simply hold a little bit of you in all places 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 if you end up not with somebody you liked. In a single second you’re excited concerning the future you may’ve shared and in one other second you’re reminiscing on the life you as soon as shared.
BREAK BREAD
“BREAK BREAD” explores the concept of household and our Nigerian tradition being on the heart of our lives — really the rock of who we actually are. We’ve been in relationships the place they perhaps don’t respect nor care to be taught the particular relationship we now have with our household. It’s a reminder that it’s good 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 after 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 particular person. 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 shifting 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 residence due to the best way they developed us into the lads we’re at present. Regardless of the place we’re on the earth, we are going to all the time come again residence.
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 approach. 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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