Spotlight: Kah-Lo On Making Music For Your Inner Badass
WE ALL HAVE OUR ANTHEM - our one song that no matter the mood makes us feel invincible. This is the music Kah-Lo creates. The Nigerian-born and Brooklyn-based singer brings power to her music that can be felt in every beat. Making for empowering, intoxicating, and sweat-inducing music. Music that is felt within and shown on the outside. With the release of songs like “Fake ID,” which racked up an impressive 100 million streams, and “Rinse and Repeat” which earned her a Grammy nomination, Kah-Lo has been on a journey to success. Having worked alongside UK producer Riton, and talents like Idris Elba, Kah-Lo has made a name for herself. But in the ever-changing music industry, it’s a name she is still trying to figure out.
Kah-Lo sat in her Brooklyn apartment, one she is soon to move out of. The epitome of vibrance, Kah-Lo’s hair was dyed green, darker turquoise at the roots, and bright green on the ends of her mullet/wolf cut. She wore gold hexagon-framed glasses and a green blouse, with what looked like bright tropical flowers. But it wasn’t Kah-Lo’s hair or clothes that shined brightest, it was instead her warm welcoming energy and smile. Even over Zoom, it was hard to miss.
Kah-Lo beamed at the congratulations on her latest five-track EP, The Arrival, that came out in June of this year, as she began to explain how she came to New York City in the first place. Kah-Lo arrived in New York at the young age of 16 to attend Hofstra University, and with the knowledge that she had family connections in New York. “When you're raised in an African house, you got to go to university, get a degree. So I got my degree, that was all great, got it in journalism, actually. And then I graduated, and I was like, I don't want to do this. So I decided to focus on my music passion. And then I met a guy called Riton and the rest is history.”
Graduation was the real epiphany for Kah-Lo. She had been running a tech blog that had gained traction but was feeling further removed from her initial purpose, which was music. “I was only doing those things because I was like, ‘if music doesn't work out’, but that's a negative headspace to be in,” Kah-Lo said. Instead, she decided to focus on the best-case scenario. She changed her name from Faridah Seriki to Kah-Lo, released more music on SoundCloud, and began performing at open mics. Where she was well-received. Then with Riton, she released “Rinse and Repeat” which earned her the highest praise for a musician, a Grammy nomination.
“It was exciting and it was scary. It was exciting because you know, it was the first song I've ever put out professionally and it's like the song just out of, what seemed like nowhere, just got this highest honor you can get as a musician. You know, it's crazy. And then it was scary because I was just like, oh my god, this is now the bar. It took me a while to unlearn that not everything can get a Grammy nomination. And you know, not everything can be the greatest thing you've ever done, you know?” Kah-Lo said.
But of course, that hasn’t deterred Kah-Lo from continuing to hone in on her craft. Kah-Lo’s music often begins as a simple line or tidbit that grabbed her attention. It then becomes a piece of poetry that she layers rhythmic beats over. “When I write that tidbit, it means I already have the energy of the entire song and it will just easily flow out of me. Because I know what I was feeling, and that specific line encapsulated the entire feeling so I just expand on that one little tidbit and that makes a song.”
Often those feelings Kah-Lo speaks of are feelings that hype her up or make her feel like her most bad-ass self. “A lot of my most high energy stuff I write when I'm not really feeling very energetic, and I write it to kind of hype myself up,” Kah-Lo said. “It's kind of for myself to, no pun intended, ginger myself to feel either my baddest bitch self or at my most hyped-up, energetic self. Or my most ‘don't fuck with me’ self - which I'm not feeling all the time. But I write soundtracks to when I want to feel like that.”
The Arrival is no exception, but that doesn’t mean that some tracks on the new EP don’t carry a heavier weight. Kah-Lo explained how “The Commandments” was her favorite track off the EP because it was challenging. “It was a very intense sense of release when I wrote that one. I cried because towards the end when it just gets so big and epic - it was a lot. It felt bigger than me.”
Kah-Lo’s music often gets grouped under dance music but Kah-Lo is hoping to fall under dance-pop or pop as of late. “I'm really trying to shift more into the pop space. Because I like pop music. And the dance community is great but I don't really feel a lot of love for songwriter vocalists in that space. And that makes me very sad. But it’s almost like you have to be a DJ to, you know, get the benefits and the joys of being in that space. And I don't like to put myself in positions where there's no joy.”
One thing that is sure to bring Kah-Lo joy is performing. “I love attention so much. That's where you get to see how your music is making people feel in real time, how people are responding,” Kah-Lo said. Her favorite performance was in Australia during the Splendour in the Grass music festival. “It's crazy because the tent was so empty, right before. And I was just like, no one is coming to this. And usually I would take just a shot just to get me in there. And I was like, you know what no, I'm gonna perform on an empty tank. I'm just gonna do this. And then it started filling up. And it was crazy, because then by the time I was halfway through the first song it was full. And they knew all the words and it was just an overwhelming sense of like, oh my god, this many people care.”
Kah-Lo spoke lovingly of the fans who reached out during tough times to say her music turned their mood around. This is also when she feels most accomplished as an artist. She explained that she was beyond grateful that she gets to survive in the treacherous music industry but when her fans speak of her music’s influence it refocuses her. “This is why I'm here. This is why I'm put on this earth. I would say, purpose is my greatest accomplishment. Yeah, that's great. Finding that.”
And when it comes to making it in the big city Kah-Lo has one thing to say: “Tell everyone.”
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