Popstar ascents have become so predictable – unknown guest on dance track later re-emerges as a solo act – that it’s easy to be cynical of more elaborate backstories. And Kwaye’s is fairly eyebrow-raising. Within the first week of a year studying abroad at UCLA, the Zimbabwe-born, London-raised student met a producer who offered him some discarded tracks. In one day, Kwaye wrote a song called Cool Kids, about a generation creating its own culture.
Then he found himself in an Uber driven by “a former music industry exec”, and played him the song. The driver soon texted saying that a friend who ran an indie label wanted to meet. He picked Kwaye up and took him to the offices of Mind Of A Genius, where founder David Dann offered Kwaye free studio time, and signed him later that year.
At no point did Kwaye question whether this might be some organ-harvesting ruse. “That might be naïve of me,” he admits. “I thought it was a bit weird, it was all happening way too quickly, but the guy did genuinely seem cool. And it was in broad daylight.”
Kwaye is smart and gregarious, and has a miraculously clean internet presence for someone who can’t remember life without it. One of his three older sisters is Shingai Shoniwa from 2000s indie band The Noisettes. He thinks seeing her life in the spotlight – and wanting to have a music career himself – made him careful about posting personal material online. It’s eerily forward-thinking, giving him almost total power to shape his public identity as an artist. “It’s only stressful if you overthink it,” he says.
His only fear is being misunderstood, or having close-minded people limit his potential – once his music career gets going, he also wants to pursue animation and TV. “I feel like I have so much to give, and sometimes it can be overwhelming, he says. “I wanna make sure that every time I step out there, I’m letting people know that there’s a lot more than meets the eye.”