I remember being about seven years old and a woman in front of me was curled up in bed and crying about a fight she’d had with her husband. I didn’t understand the intricacies at the time (although the fight had probably been about something utterly superficial covering something fairly meaningful), but I remember trying to console her by saying, “but he loves you”, and then she simply said “Love isn’t enough” and it shattered my heart. I didn’t really know what to say anymore.
Most of us grow up with the concept of love being the greatest salvation of all time – it happens in most of the films we watch as children, whether it is a Disney princess one or a Bollywood film like Rocky aur Rani, we see people come together, to fight so hard just so that they be together. Love seems to be worth everything.
Unfortunately, the union is mostly just the beginning of the show, and this is just what the brilliant popstar Kayan in her excellent new EP-Is Love Enough?
Fit to be almost every woman’s heartbreak anthem, a brilliantly fun and comforting mix of Ariana Grande and Aretha Franklin, Kayan’s album seems a bit like seeking solace at a friend’s house: it is uplifting in the best sense, but you also sort of know what they’re going to tell you. Sonically, the album never ceases to amaze. This isn’t an album to weep to, it’s one to dance to after you’ve blocked your partner (although again, who ever really knows if that is a good idea?)
Written and composed by Kayan herself, the EP explores the many shades of love – its warmth, weight, longing, and loss across five distinct yet connected tracks. Fusing Indian sonic influences with amapiano, afro rhythms, electronic textures, and pop, the EP journeys through the little moments of a relationship.
The debut track, Denim Jeans, is a bit like the subtle yet daring flickers of first intimacy. It feels like you’re on that road, where you’ve first walked with someone, you’re asking each other questions and the conversation feels like yhe only worthy thing that has occurred in your lifetime. You are finally being seen and perhaps now you can rest. The tone of the song is playful yet poignant – bright, catchy and oddly liberating. There is nothing like the freedom and hope fresh love has to offer.
Bright synths, shimmering hooks, and lyrics dipped in sarcasm, it’s the sonic version of texting “I’m doing well. :)” when you’re definitely not. Good Kinda Love reeks of desperation.
Unfortunately love isn’t reasonable. When you’re at the cusp of losing a relationship, it drives away your sanity and you just…go the extra mile to save it, doing whatever in the realm of saving something feels right (even if it so obviously is not). Kayan does not shy away from talking about the sheer ridicule of it. We want our person to be our person. Solely ours, we’ve felt a connection, felt loved and understood, it is somewhat like building up a dreamhouse and then doing anything to keep it intact after a calamity may have struck. The foundation must be strengthened, however, and that takes more work and time than anything else.
Our partners know us, just as we know them and perhaps that is what the most daunting aspect is – knowing the spectrum of the ferality and kindness we possess and still choosing to stay. Love is attention and unwavering devotion.
Then comes Hold Me Down, where Kayan blends her South Asian musical roots with a sharp amapiano groove. It’s defiant and triumphant but the kind of triumph that comes after realising someone you love no longer holds power over you.
The penultimate track, Too Long, stands out as the most conventionally pop-sounding. “If time was money, I gave you too much, you should’ve been rich,” she sings snarkily, her voice cool and composed, while the beat pulses like a heartbeat trying to slow down. The clarity is brutal. It’s a bit Beyonce-esque and her lyrics are fairly badass. Once again, the liberation feels like a party. The sentiment is a tad bit like Taylor Swift’s Look What You Made Me Do. The song is devastating. She questions whether she loves the man, perhaps the first sign of the will to detach, after anger has seeped in.
i’m fine acts as a melancholic end to the album. Quite possibly it’s about the stage after the fury has melted and you realise that you’re a bit alone in your heartbreak. The experience may be universal, but there are (mostly) only two people in a relationship, and only two people having the blissful fortune to experience each other without inhibitions. As Richard Siken said, Someone has to leave first. This is a very old story. There is no other version of this story.” Despite all of this, the album concludes that just one day, she will be fine, and it is in the attempt of the thought that the truth of it begins.
Throughout the EP, Kayan resists drama in favour of subtle devastation. Her production is clean but emotionally raw; her voice never begs, never breaks, it just observes, remembers, and recoils. Kayan doesn’t really answer her own question. But the fact that she asks, probably implies that love is enough.
