An Alt-RnB Unravelling of Duality, Desire and Diaphanous Introspection –

In Kinju’s latest release, Double Life, he explored the contours of duality with a pensively powerful alt-RnB touch. Through crystalline falsetto harmonies, beats that bleed reverberance, and modernised nods to boom bap nostalgia, the independent RnB experimentalist and evocateur lets his vulnerability take full shape. He wears his heart on his synth lines, allowing the fragility in his delivery to colour the entire atmosphere. The woozy textures, the slow-burning ache in the production and the suspended air around his vocal phrasing turn the track into a confession cushioned in hazy melodic light.

As the narrative unfolds, Kinju charts more and more unexplored aural territory, paying a fitting ode to the authenticity of his voice and lived experience, which often jars against itself. He channels the moments when the bitter trails the sweet, when regret sidles up to the act of following your heart and when desire mutates from self-fulfilment into the self-sacrificing wish to see someone thrive even if it nudges you out of the frame. The emotional turbulence sits against the softness of the arrangement, heightening the shadowed sting that sweeps through the track.

The diaphanous quality of the track eclipses much of contemporary RnB’, leaving a lingering shimmer that almost refuses to settle. Double Life feels like a shifting light source, revealing new angles of pensive despair, devotion and introspective reckoning every time it loops back around.

Double Life is now available on all major streaming platforms via this link. 

Review by Amelia Vandergast