Collaboration doesn’t come naturally to every artist, especially those who are protective of their creative headspace. But for KYE, crafting artistic alchemy in the studio is her strong suit.
“When you get into the studio on a session you have to be the first to come up with a great idea, otherwise someone else catches a vibe,” the 24-year-old artist says. “They set the tone.”
“For me, inviting others into the space is a curated thing. It’s always someone who is gonna challenge me, someone who’s going to push my ideas out quick,” KYE continues. “It happens for me fast these days. I can listen to the first pass of the chords and within three minutes – bam – I have the whole song.”
It was that swift, confident approach that brought about KYE’s ‘Good Company’ EP, which drops next Friday. It’s a wildly jagging yet effortlessly coherent introduction that offers neo-soul bumpers (‘Tuesday’ featuring Jerome Farah), shimmering deep house (‘Finest Quality’, Touch Sensitive), Solange-meets-Jess Mauboy future pop (‘Gold’, Sampa The Great and 18YOMAN) and relationship breakdown epiphanies (‘Sometimes’).
NME catches up with KYE – real name Kylie Tadiwa Chirunga – over Zoom, the Zimbabwe-born, London-raised, Australian-based singer speaking from her parents’ house in southeast Melbourne. She’s about to be released from two weeks of quarantine, which she had to live out after a friend she went hiking with tested positive for COVID-19.
After obediently staying put for 14 days, KYE’s joy is palpable: she speaks with her bejewelled hands and frequently breaks into song mid-conversation. She’s now free to see her goddaughter for the first time and reconnect with friends who have been outside her 5-kilometre travel bubble. “I just want to hug them,” she enthuses.
It looks like the world wants to throw its arms around KYE now, too.The singer has done her time 20 feet from stardom, touring with Sampa The Great’s band everywhere from Golden Plains to Glastonbury (we’ll get to that) and collaborating with new-school heavy-hitters Genesis Owusu, Ruel and Billy Davis. Now she’s got a full dance-card with Beyond The City (Beyond The Valley’s Melbourne CBD pivot), St Kilda Festival and a Young Franco support slot lined up.
In her Instagram bio, KYE apologises to her mum for becoming “a popstar not a doctor” – but it’s possible her parents had seen it coming all along. After all, Chirunga’s earliest memories are of catching guavas then putting on shows for her neighbours in Harare.
“My parents would be blasting Chaka Khan, Whitney Houston and Michael Jackson and everything that was poppin’ in the late ’90s,” she says. “Me and my older brother did dance routines for all the kids and parents.” With some prodding from NME, she pulls on some socks and moonwalks across her carpet.