Whatever metaphors and superlatives one may think of, and even if it is a well used cliché: it is really very difficult to describe the music of the phenomenal Berlin artist who is calling herself KID BE KID. She really is a sensation. Listening to KID BE KID while she is simultanously singing and beatboxing, playing the piano and synths, is simply breathtaking. How does she do that? Where is this incredible power coming from? With such an somnambulistic certainty of style?
Speaking of which: It is by no means only just one style that she can be pinned down to. KID BE KID blurs genre boundaries playfully and fluidly. There are jazzy pianos, funky R&B grooves, clubby sci-fi synth pads and electronic patterns, and on top: her expressive soul vocals. Great pop with an exclamation mark. Think The Internet, James Blake, Alica Keys, Thom Yorke and Rhazel from the Roots. Except that with KID BE KID, everything visibly flows out of one person’s body all at once.
Her latest single “A Room To Dance” is as well her debut release for outernational label FUN IN THE CHURCH. “My body is too weak, too fast is my heartbeat, my soul is too weak and my whole breathing ain’t deep” she is singing, while the accompanying video is set in an abandoned quarry where we watch her looking for a free space and individual expression to a merciless marching bass drum in dance moves conducted by the choreographer Alexander Miller: At first she seems restless and obstructed in her rehearsed movements until she eventually is grooving her way into some kind of NFT hyperpop parallel world created by Berlin artist Markus S. Fiedler. KID BE KID frees herself in her imaginary mothership and together we all lift off.
Wow! Is this the future of soul? Future soul? Another well used genre term. With KID BE KID it could actually fit.