Get to know: KWN

KWN (pronounced Kay-wuhn) is someone who has already been recognised as someone with undeniable talent as she has been featured on several curated Spotify playlists. The East Londoner from Walhamstow’s sound is at times indescribable which has everything to do with her electric fluidity and textured approach to her music always favouring a sensuous feeling that accelerates the heartbeat.

Only in her early twenties, her music is an intimately woven introduction to KWN as a person detailing her personal experiences with life. We sit down with her to talk about her debut EP Episode wn, growth, love and her desire to be an outlier by not allowing herself to be boxed in.

Not one to sit still or take any off days the East Londoner worked right up to deadline day keeping herself busy with shooting the video for the last single that dropped in anticipation of the project ‘nobody’.

Discussing Episode wn, the whole conception of the project, KWN admits that she has been sitting on the project for a while now. The singer says “I’ve just been on a journey really. That involves “ finding myself as a person and as an artist.”

The whole idea of Episode wn is “literally being the first episode” and we witness in this cohesive narrative a love story that is at times heavily toxic, as Kwn journals her experiences during a difficult period in her life.

Currently, the East Londoner has 47,863 monthly listeners on Spotify, it also feels that Episode wn is an introduction to Kwn who is naturally quite lowkey and someone who doesn’t have a massive social media presence. Sharing that belief Kwn says that “I feel that this is the first insight into me because I’m not too open as a person until you really get to know me.

Speaking about what she wants listeners to take from the first episode “ I just want everyone to take it in. I don’t think I want anyone to take anything from it but I just want them to appreciate what I’ve done.”

The project also signals a milestone both artistically and personally. Kwn shares that “from top to bottom it’s almost a chronological story and it was a mad time in my life, I was in a mad relationship.”

“Obviously I knew that at least 99% of people would be able to relate to it and sometimes it’s not even about the bad toxic stuff it’s about the good toxic stuff as well.

I learnt a lot about myself and what I want from other people, not even just romantic relationships but friendships as well. That realisation was very big, it made me see what I wanted other people to see.”

Speaking about the talent that’s been steadily coming through East London “I’m grateful and it’s mad to think that at this moment right now there are so many artists. I feel that it could be very easy to get clouded and disheartened by it because you have so many talented people.”

However, Kwn confessed that for her “it puts the drive into it” finding inspiration from other talented artists.

Talking about the unique soundscape that is seemingly indescribable that the singer inhabits, she has been drawing from numerous musical inspirations from a young age. “I have never stuck to one genre of music.” She also shares “ my dad used to be a DJ so growing up I just had all types of music in the house, garage, R&B, pop, a lot of different African music.”

“Once I started to find my sound, I was listening to a lot of PARTYNEXTDOOR and Ty Dollar $ign to get some structure, but I don’t really listen to a lot of people now. I mean I don’t have a go-to artist but my playlist is all over the place, it’s filled with all types of music because I never want to be boxed in.”

The most important thing to Kwn is never to “lose the fun out of it” as she believes once you start to conform by “ trying to make certain sounding songs you start to look at it like work and you lose the fun and the passion out of it.”

Talking about her recording process of going into the studio and organically working with the producer. She says “It’s not all the time that you need a foundation. Sometimes you can just go into it and that’s the amazing thing about music. You don’t need a starting point.”

Opening up a bit more about her background it’s clear that music runs in the family, “obviously my dad has a big influence on me”. Continuing she says “I’ve had music in my life since young, I’ve two older sisters who love music as well. My eldest sister used to go to performing arts school.”

Kwn started playing the drums and the piano at a young age, then started to experiment with making her own beats and writing her own lyrics. She also had a passion for football until she decided to pursue music.

After listening to the project there’s a strong belief that there are so many more exciting things to come from Kwn and Episode 1 was just the first slice.

Listen to Episode wn here