papa mbye

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.