Listening to Kaya Street’s new four-part single series—” Kaya Street Summer Singles” from “Revolutionary Minds” through to “Start Again”—feels less like queuing up a playlist and more like walking through four rooms of a single, sprawling house. Each one is painted a different colour, holds a different temperature, but they’re all unmistakably connected by the same foundation.
This is the Bristol collective’s genius: crafting a political and emotional narrative that moves from the bullhorn of the public square to the raw murmur of a private confession, all carried by a core of unnamed, collective-first musicianship. The vocalist here isn’t a star; they are a conduit, a vessel for the frequency.
The journey starts with a jolt. “Revolutionary Minds” isn’t a gentle invitation to the cause; it’s a frantic drum & bass beat that kicks the door in, demanding you pay attention. The track invokes a lineage of artistic defiance, and its militant optimism smells like something specific—like wet posters peeling from a brick wall the morning after a protest. It’s the scent of ink, rain, and conviction.
And then, the pivot. The jarring, brilliant pivot. “Blue Dancer” trades the righteous fury for a hypnotic, psychedelic Afrobeat haze. Here, the struggle is internal, a cyclical memory walking in circles around a gorgeous, looping bassline from Mario Corronca. It’s followed by “Don’t Give Up,” a soulful reggae-ballad that feels like a 3 A.M. phone call you know you shouldn’t have made but had to. It’s a hollowed-out plea for redemption, where the space between Toby Mcquity’s drums is filled with palpable regret. To place this track after the call-to-arms is a brave, deeply human choice. It admits that even revolutionaries get the blues.
The final room, “Start Again,” is where the windows are thrown open. Eryk Nowak’s Latin piano motifs dance with Soukous-inflected guitar lines, creating a global groove that feels like walking into a party where you don’t speak the language but everyone understands your smile. It’s a plea for empathy that feels earned, not preached. The rage and the pain of the previous tracks have settled into a kind of determined compassion.
Kaya Street makes music for the dancefloor and for the demonstration. This collection honours both, but it leaves you chewing on a fascinating question: which is built to carry more weight, the marching foot or the broken heart?
