Kadhja Bonet
Childqueen

Love can be (self)-destructive when it realizes that the dedication and efforts to communicate have become in vain. Obsessions feed the brain to the most devouring paranoia, sex becomes the quarter-hour dedicated to pantomime, to the representation of something that works, to mask the absence of the courage needed for the end credits. One of the most bizarre ways of fooling ourselves that has been handed down to us.

A long-distance love, in which the corrosive power of brooding can contaminate what you, silly, thought wouldn’t end because it was too much of everything to immediately reveal what it concealed, is, if I'm not mistaken, the theme of “Delphine,” one of the peaks of this album. Where one of the two parts cannot comprehend the possibility that the object of their love (or “love”) finds that courage aforementioned.

What follows is panic, anger, and disbelief that might lead to asking: “Delphine, what does this letter mean? Is it a goodbye or just a strange way of saying hello? I know exactly where you are, Delphine. You are with me; you belong to me.”

This obsessive drift of a feeling is offered to us by the splendid voice of Kadhja Bonet, who with a minimal arrangement, a synthesizer that sprays omens under an exposition of a bass made of liquid rubber and a sparse drum, manages to conceive a piece that, in my abyssal ignorance of life and the world, I dare to consider a classic.

Childqueen!

But what kind of album is it?

Who is this Kadhja, besides being the stepsister of Lisa Bonet?

Multi-instrumentalist, self-reliant producer whose debuts date back about ten years, with a clear and pure voice, who puts her academic training at the service of a changing creativity, a feverish curiosity, and the search for self-understanding through music, arousing immediate sympathy when she declares not to consider herself a musician, not to consider herself an artist.

Which, if we consider how many self-proclaimed artists suffocate and plague our times with their art, is, at the very least, a rare thing to hear.

On her second official release, and first over a long distance, this woman nails it with Childqueen, an album of atypical chamber soul, if it exists, suitable for this shadowy season, perfect for being alone at home in a collected and intimate dimension.

So, “Delphine” evokes a certain type of desolate inner worm with delicate and vaguely sinister lyricism; but within ten tracks, there is room for different shades of a psychedelic soul that, if one didn’t know it was relatively recent (the album was released in June 2018), one would swear it was blasted onto Earth in 1972, forgotten by everyone and rediscovered by chance by some insomniac and obsessed archaeologist looking for obscure pearls of a parallel and indie Motown?

“Procession”, which could also be defined as martial, for how it proceeds to the rhythm of a snare drum played by a drummer who hates being intrusive, opens the album with the pride of one who has realized that to better oneself, change is fundamental, to evolve in harmony with what surrounds us. We'd love it if every morning brought a chance for renewal, Dr. Bonet. And I love you also for how you sing to us, this possibility.

There is never too much vehemence in this music, which is instead capable of enveloping like a cup of hot tea (“Thoughts Around Tea” is the title of another delightful sketch) if one allows it, and transporting one into a timeless moment, with its own composure, even melancholic; a quality hard to meddle with by some starlets who undeservedly boast the title of queen of soul, perhaps of our local scene (you wish, oh well).

I do not want to imply that Bonet is free of some tiny flaws in the composition phase, or that she has birthed a record that will be remembered for decades to come (by me, yes!). But she is very measured, a rock that does not give in to mawkishness. She emerges immaculate, and at a certain point, there is this fantastic piece, darn it!

“Joy”

Kadhja’s voice multiplies, which would already be self-sufficient and fantastic a cappella, but it allows strings and flute and that bass with such an old and beautiful sound to accompany her in a suspended moment, while many selves ask “where are you going?” to the fleeting and elusive joy, and also to themselves, granting a floating surrealism in the harmonizations of the finale.

Psychedelic, I say it. And also a masterpiece.

“Mother Maybe” would not have looked out of place in the repertoire of a soul man like Stevie Wonder between Music of My Mind and Songs in the Key of Life, without implying comparisons, just as “...” would have perfectly suited the secret life of plants.

These and other beautiful things await the listener on Childqueen, whose sonic texture is homogeneous enough to make it a coherent and organic work without being monotonous.

An album that can sound old or new and will sound new or old in twenty years, in the same way.

The mother is slow to gift this child queen a sibling, even though she has released signals in the form of scattered beautiful songs, but she does not seem to have anxieties about appearing.

Now she’s on Ninja Tune and collaborates with Bonobo as well, and I can’t wait to listen to a whole new album soon, because we are in the presence of an artist (I apologize to Kadhja) of superior quality, but I also get the impression that fame and money are not what she wants in life.

Discovering this chest Kadhja has built mainly for herself is a privilege and a small luxury, like a glass of good wine, a bong (get me the license plate number) done properly, a cognac, the smile of a little queen looking you in the eyes.

V, my Childqueen is U

Finished without too much conviction or inspiration at 00:20 between February 28 and March 1, 2025.