JAKAARLO

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JAKAARLO (EP) out now - https://ffm.to/jakaarlo
LYRICS
​​​​A certain kind of stillness
Life in the margins
Ever since the day
You came to visit
Lu ma gën di yàgg, xel ni mel ni bank
Lu ma gën di màgg, dellu tuuti tank
Set it down
(li ma weesu dey dellu se, mel ni setu)
The perfect kind of picture
Is one you save inside your mind
You always take it with you
Now set it down
This moment could last forever now
And if I should leave the world today
Damay, damay, damay dellu gune
Mel ni, mel ni, mel ni duma màgg
Damay, damay, damay dellu gune
Mel ni, mel ni, mel ni duma màgg
Li ma dunde, li ma weesu
Dey dellu se
Mel ni setu
Li ma dunde, li ma weesu
Dey dellu se
Mel ni setu
Li ma dunde, li ma weesu
Dey dellu se
Mel ni setu
Li ma dunde, li ma weesu
Dey dellu se
Mel ni setu
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papa mbye writes experimental pop songs threading flourishes of electronic, R&B, soul, and more. Born in The Gambia, raised in North Minneapolis, and a relative newcomer to making music after starting as a visual artist, he’s taken strides in his sound in a short time. With his new self-produced EP, JAKAARLO, he brings his voice into focus, exercising restraint in arrangements while pushing his craft forward. Songs burst with color, texture, and hooks.
JAKAARLO is a meditation on closeness. Not just the kind shared between lovers, but the elusive kind that drifts between memory, distance, and desire. The title, which translates from Wolof as “to be close to”, is borrowed from a song by the late Senegalese musician N'dongo Lo appearing on his 2005 album Adouna. With JAKAARLO, mbye channels that sense of appreciation for the entirety of love, the real and the raw, the fleeting and finite, the spaces between people, tense, messy, and beautiful. Joined by a cast of collaborators, mbye wields layers of instrumentation and voice into vibrant, future-facing material that declares his arrival as both a visionary producer and performer.
The mood board for JAKAARLO spans the music of his youth (Youssou N'Dour, N'dongo Lo) and the boundless off-kilter pop of Jai Paul, alongside mbye’s friends and contemporaries: Minneapolis artists Young Dervish, Vlush, KINFU, and Ryan Olson (Bon Iver, Gayngs, Poliça), who contributed on the album. papa mbye’s music rumbles, rattles, and darts between modes, welcoming high-wattage basslines, guitar riffs, and synth tones in a hyperactive, mesmeric mix. At the center is his emotive voice, capable of raspy croon and howling falsetto.
For the title track, he interpolates a childhood favorite, N'Dour’s “Li Ma Weesu”, as a means of confronting the feeling of getting older. He explains, “When you're a kid, you're always wanting to grow up. And when you grow up, you want to go back to being a kid.” Over skittering percussion and pitched-up snippets, Mbye delivers the chorus in Wolof, “li ma wee su dey dellu se, mel ni setu”, which translates to “what is past comes back, like a reflection." He says, “It gave me an emotional place that I can go to in that stretch further than anything I could have sang in English.”
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#papambye #JAKAARLO