Given her obvious talents, you’d be forgiven for thinking that it was all so effortless. But Kaiit admits, creativity is not something at her infinite disposal. “It’s a strange, strange thing. Sometimes something will come to me so easily. And other times I feel like I’m really struggling, like I’ve lost it. Which is how I’ve been feeling for quite some time,” she explains.
“Even while the EP was being created. Because all these tracks were written a little while ago. And I was trying to write, while trying to record the rest of the EP. And I just couldn’t do it. I don’t know what it was, I just couldn’t write.”
It’s a feeling Kaiit admits didn’t really subside until her EP, Live From Her Room, hit the airwaves. “Now that it’s finally out, maybe that’s why all this new stuff is able to come in. But yeah, my creativity, she’s not with me all the time. Or maybe I just think that she’s not.”
Today though, Kaiit is on a high. “I’m super hyped right now because I’m writing something, it’s because I feel like I haven’t written in quite some time,” she says. “And this track, how I’m writing about it is that it’s kind of like my creativity. But writing my creativity as if it’s a person. And asking whether it will come back around soon. Like Nona, you know she’s got some mad food up her sleeve, some mad recipes. Like come over boo.”
Her debut effort, Live From Her Room, is a confession of sorts. And when listening to the tracks, it’s clear Kaiit has a lot to say. ‘OG Luv Kush’ touches on love like it’s a narcotic, with its addiction, the ons and offs at cupid’s whim. While songs like ‘Girl in the Picture’, reflect on special kinds of friendships. “It’s about those real-life friends that you have. That tell you how it is, whether you like it or not,” says Kaiit.
This realness, this candour, is what keeps her message buoyant along the neo soul beats throughout – each bar carrying an emotional potency that hits home. Punctuated with sincere gestures like in ‘Girl in Picture’, where Kaiit enlisted the help of the friend she was writing about. “It’s actually got her talking on it. I recorded her, that’s her talking at the end. I’m so glad I did it. I mean I had to force it a little, because she’s not one for getting out there. But I’m glad I was able to get her on it, because it finished it off.”
Her honest and skilful approach to music, and image as a young, strong-willed woman, has brought on “feminist” labels. Kaiit prefers however to keep her philosophy grounded, her views firmly humble. “I think, in the music I create, I’m just trying to be myself. And these songs are the reflections of what I believe or what I’ve learnt, and things that I’m learning. And if people can appreciate, or they can learn, or even just by listening to it that it can help them, that’s my job done.
“There’s all kinds of beautiful people out there that I may not be able to speak for. Because I may not have gone through what they’ve gone through. But if people can relate to the things that I sing about, then yeah, I’m happy with that.”
As the hype starts to mount, and things heat up around her, you can see why such a mental state will be necessary to slice through it all. Currently, Kaiit is halfway through her headline tour, with a Strawberry Fields slot on the horizon in mid-November. She’s also hot off the heels of supporting hip hop soul outfit The Internet on their Australian tour. An experience she says, taught her a lot about the touring life.
“I don’t think it was so much what they said, just how they approached things. You know they didn’t go and party after. It was all just very chill and inhouse. And that’s something I’ve had to learn the hard way. But yeah, definitely taking care of your vessel and your body.”
The icing on the cake though, was the co-sign from US R&B soul queen, Jill Scott. Not to be underestimated, the shout-out – where Scott posted a video of Kaiit’s ‘OG Luv Kush Part 2’ saying that she was her and Erykah Badu’s love child – was immense.
It was middle of the night, while Kaiit was having a sleep-over with her little sister, when the notifications piled through. “I remember waking up and hopping on my hone, as you do, and there was just like thousands of notifications,” says Kaiit. “And I’m like: ‘I mean that selfie was cute’, but you know it wasn’t that cute.
“And people just kept saying, ‘thank you Jilly’ and ‘Jilly sent me here’. And I’m like who the hell is Jilly? And then soon realised what happened. And everyone was asleep, I just wanted to scream, but I had to calm down. And then I woke up and was like: ‘aw, what a crazy dream’.”
True to her values though, Kaiit sifts through the noise to stay grounded. She finds family critical, to the process of orienting her. “They’ll pull me out really quick you know, if I say something,” she says. “They’ll be like ‘um … go clean the toilet’.”
“I’m very blessed to have people that, I don’t know, they’ll let me know when I’m doing good, but they’re not going to make me feel it too much.”
