A star is (really) born
This was a first for me: in a month’s time, I discovered a new artist on Spotify, almost immediately became a fan, found out she was on tour, got a ticket, saw her perform and became an even bigger fan. And her name is Kadhja Bonet.
The story goes like this: about a month ago, I was casually listening to my girlfriend’s Spotify weekly mix playing in the background, while hard at work on some Candy Crush-type game on my phone. As one does on a quiet autumn evening, thank you very much. Then a new song kicked off and I stopped playing: it sounded really different, both very classic and highly contemporary: that was Kadhja Bonet’s near-cult “Honeycomb”.
For those of you who don’t know yet, Kadhja Bonet is a young Californian singer/songwriter - with pretty great guitar skills to match - who has been slowly but surely building a career for herself on the West coast scene. With a very subtle blend of classic Soul & RnB on the one hand and occasionally Spector-esque 60’s pop feels on the other, her highly distinctive style will clearly stand out in your run-of-the-mill Spotify mix.
Bonet’s ability to reference classic trends, yet make her sound so utterly contemporary directly reflects her clothing style and onstage persona: very well versed, yet extremely fresh. Dressed in sophisticated retro-vintage outfits in proper hipster fashion, she’s remarkably quick-witted in-between songs that beautifully highlight her vocal abilities. Not diva-type, fill-the-room kind of vocals, though: more like subtle harmonies in tunes that usually work best with a single acoustic guitar.
Kadhja Bonet, Café de la danse, Paris, October 22d 2018.
The reason I know this is that, as fate would have it, she happened to be performing in Paris mere weeks after I discovered her in that mix. And that is the “first” part: I bought a ticket for an artist I didn’t even know a month before, something I never do. And got loftily rewarded for it too: her performance was perhaps even better than her studio work, swiftly immersing the audience in her wonderfully rich universe. From her beautifully subdued vocals to her ethereal guitar arpeggios (she would at times steal the guitarist’s instrument for intimate renderings of her most personal songs), we found ourselves in the presence of a truly unique voice. And that happens so incredibly rarely…
Towards the latter part of the show, she introduced a track from her brand new album, Childqueen, by saying: “This is the only song from the album I can stand listening to now, and I only do it when I hesitate on whether or not I should keep doing this”. I’ll help: the answer is — hell yeah!
Want to know more? Here you go!