kwn Releases Her 'with all due respect' EP

kwn (pronounced kay-wuhn) releases her second EP with all due respect as she builds on a breakout year in which she has gained wide attention.

The new 9-track project released via RCA Records is a bold take full of thick paint strokes and intense colour as kwn’s distinct soulful vocals are paired with forward-thinking and modern production, creating a deep feeling synergy.

“This project is me setting a foundation for myself in R&B" kwn says, "I’ve done a few great features this past year and now I want people to start taking me in for who I am as an artist. I feel a lot of people had previously been sleeping on me & doubting me. With all due respect, they should have never done that. Bow!”

We are led into the project with piano melodies and futuristic synths on ‘bite me INTRO’, a teasing and challenge of sorts to the artists, where kwn demonstrates that she is not interested in playing it small.

Things pick up immediately on the up-tempo and jazz-influenced ‘stand on it’. Rich, rapid undertones, layered with live horn instrumentation, give off a warm humming sensation as kwn confronts a love interest about their loyalty after a night spent together.

Not wanting to reveal the dark secret, she expresses transparency as she sings the hook, “ ‘cause I do get jealous, but I’m not embarrassed / Ain’t gon’ love you in private, oh, no,no.”

The third track of the project, ‘Worst Behaviour’ isn’t the first time that kwn worked together with her good friend Kehlani. They also worked together on Kehlani’s mixtape, While We Wait 2 with‘Clothes Off’.

Joining her for the remix though, Kehlani’s smooth voice adds a sweet coolness that washes over the production of ‘Worst Behaviour’ as kwn embraces the recklessness of being young and involved with someone. Exploring the ease of which to be caught up in, want, sexual desire, tension snapping, and breathlessness, kwn delivers her line with a smouldering heat which makes you sweat.

Slower, ‘back of the club’ sees the East Londoner embrace nostalgic elements of early 2000s and contemporary R&B as she softly sings with yearning and longing about an impromptu meeting with a stranger on a night out.

Not worrying about radio play, ‘fxckin (interlude)’ likens a sexual encounter to making music in a recording studio. kwn is playful as she manipulates language, simile and metaphor to get her point across.

On the seductive ‘talk you through it’, the second feature on the project. kwn collaborates with R&B group FLO, who provide an extra texture to the overall sonics of the song.

Love and intoxication seem to go hand in hand, as well as the fast nature of falling in and out of love. The days of the week blur together, as does the names of the girls that the vocalist dates as kwn still doesn’t seem to learn her lesson on ‘all the girls’. She remarks ironically, “Weren’t I with my ex last week? And now I’m / laid up with the next one."

Carrying the confidence and self-assurance that is as addictive as the rhythmic guitar rift pattern on the song. ‘do what I say’ is dedicated to kwn’s involvement with an older women, forsaking nonchalantness or coyness, she is open with her want, and that’s swiftly followed by what she expects.

Ending with the empathic ballad ‘war to be over’, kwn encourages the person she has been seeing to move on rather than wait for a relationship to manifest when it never will. Understanding the position she has put the person in, she admits that it might be too late for a clean exit.

Listen here