EP Review: and all pride aside by kwn
kwn opens this EP claiming she could put any woman on all fours and ends it praying over someone she’s losing.
R&B has always had a role for women to flap their lips about sex, from Millie Jackson’s lewd monologues to Adina Howard’s appetite on “Freak Like Me” to Janet’s submission on “Rope Burn.” The mode has hardly ever gone away, but in the UK, it has largely been sidelined into the whispered, internalist alternative R&B that has defined the scene for a decade. kwn, 26 and from East London, writes against that grain, in the simple diction of late-90s and early-00s American seduction anthems, aiming the approach at other women; a woman addressing a woman she’d like. She first came to attention for her naked bravado, which didn’t need pity, then continued it, far past where bragging stops, and as a follow-up to with all due respect, and all pride aside has to accommodate wanting someone that’s unobtainable.
For most of “all fours,” kwn sounds completely in control. “I could never date a bitch that don’t wanna make me main course,” she begins, “I don’t want much, just want you obsessed with me.” But the swagger stumbles over the single obstacle it can’t overcome: “I want you, even when you don’t want me/I guess karma came around and brought a player to their knees.” The other part of the song, by Destin Conrad, is just as uncommitted to want, tuned to a frequency of pleasure in being desired for no reason, “The way you don’t need me for shit,” “Don’t want no wedding ring, it turns me on.” So the duo turns into two people, vying to shed emotional commitments, believing none of it. “good girl” continues with pleasure in being punished by your desires; it’s all order and delighted compliance. “You only behave when you get your way/Take all your revenge put it on my face,” down to the gag of a visitor that is waved away, an indication of refusal in itself.
The EP has a number of instances of just pure appetite amplification: “’til u cry” is one repeated chant (“Cum, cum ’til you cry”), as “’til the room stinks,” which features Ty Dolla $ign, is a perfect slice-of-life mood, two verses worth of fogged window and security outside the door; lightweight and instantly satisfying. Even the less striking tracks don’t lose sight of the hunger within. On “touch myself,” kwn drops the act, the confidence unraveling to just loneliness; her confession is a collection of pictures kept “for when I’m alone” and the corrected declaration of “I am not, not no pillow princess.”
None of this late-project shift feels like kwn playing dress-up with a different personality, though. It is still the woman who brags that’s speaking; she is just beginning to acknowledge the cost of that swagger. “rather never love again” sets the work to light terms. “I’m a better me now,” she sing-talks, “I let all my ego get me down,” later vowing to “taking all the blame and all the pain for the rest of my life,” and “Therapy, is next,” in a completely flat tone. On “hopeless romantic,” kwn narrows the aperture of her desires, stripping the act down to the bare essence of what she wants: “I want us in matching slippers/Dancing in the kitchen,” phones not even in the frame, love is reduced to “I want somebody/That’ll choose me every day.”
By “idea of love,” all vestiges of swagger are stripped clean. “I don’t like the idea of love/Shit keeps beating me, then beats me up,” she sings before contrasting real love with the concept itself; she asks, “Is it the idea of you or the idea of us?” This time it is the timing of love and how to afford it, and with a quick “maybe I’m depressed, maybe I need meds,” kwn lands on the climax of the entire set of songs: “I think a player got played. “better on my own” details the breakup as it is happening, the apartment left messy, “Boxers still up in your drawer” and the “Toothbrush right where I left it,” before the resolve is shattered by the “Drinking till I can’t see straight.” And then “heaven’s in your hands” is addressed to a person she loves and is losing; folded around a simple plea to her mother to be ok, she attempts to remain poised, asking the dying not to “Ruin all this gangster I got,” but only for affirmation, an assurance that she was enough.
Even the one retro cut aims for a familiar want. A sampling and flipping of Nelly’s “Hot in Herre” anchors “risk it all,” turning the party track into yet another failed pursuit (which could be another song of the summer contender). In the same unflappable way kwn scripts the sexed up calls of desire, she scripted her breakdown, never offering a moment on the lines to show when feelings have begun to set. She doesn’t grow up throughout this album, and nor would she have to; instead, she stays exactly like that—plain and exposed, open to loving people who couldn’t care less about her in return.
Favorite Track(s): “all fours,” “idea of love,” “heaven’s in your hands”