Highs + Lows Review: KADEEM. Throws a Party and Refuses to Sing

Highs + Lows is KADEEM.’s debut that hides behind other people’s voices—fifteen guests, zero lead vocals, and a weirdly intimate punchline.

A debut that “arrives” by stepping out of the way

Most debuts kick the door down. Highs + Lows slips in, makes the furniture look expensive, and then lets everyone else do the talking.

KADEEM. (Kadeem Clarke-Samuel) has been sitting in the background of modern UK soul-adjacent greatness for long enough that this album doesn’t feel like an introduction—it feels like the moment the “supporting character” decides the movie was always theirs. I’ve known his hands more than his face: keyboards, Rhodes, Hammond organ, bass—those rich, lived-in textures that keep songs breathing instead of posing. He’s been in the SAULT universe (when they were dropping albums like unmarked parcels with the comments locked and the identities blurred), and that whole vibe—mystery as a method—still clings to him here.

And yet this is the funniest possible version of stepping forward: he produces, composes, and plays nearly everything… then doesn’t take a single vocal slot. Fifteen vocal moments, all handed off. That decision alone tells you the album’s agenda: this isn’t “look at me.” It’s “watch what I can build.”

Arguable claim: a debut this controlled isn’t trying to impress you—it’s trying to prove it never needed you.

The real flex: he collects voices like instruments

Once you accept the premise, the guest list starts reading like KADEEM. playing curator and puppeteer, but in a tasteful way—more like a chef who won’t stop bringing plates.

Bilal shows up on “XTC” and immediately reminds you why some singers sound like they’ve got extra oxygen in their lungs. He turns the track into a high-wire falsetto plea—closing your eyes, falling “so deep you’re flying/high above the moon and stars.” What gets me is how KADEEM. frames him: flugelhorn and sax building a soft bed that gets fuller without getting fussy. It’s thick, but it doesn’t crowd him. Nate Holder and Matt Roberts handle the brass like they’re painting a ceiling, not showing off. Underneath, KADEEM.’s bass just keeps time—patient, almost anonymous—while Bilal runs around emotionally barefoot.

Then “Suede Memories” flips the mood without raising the volume. Ivan Ave comes in with that wry, straight-faced focus—“married to the cause,” climbing ladders, paying the cost. It’s that pre-relationship tunnel vision where ambition is basically your personality. Then somebody shows up and suddenly you’re catching the wrong bus and pretending it’s scenic. KADEEM. lays warm Rhodes chords under him at a mid-tempo pace—steady enough to feel responsible, soft enough to feel like the responsibility is slipping. And that line about “a brain full of art like it’s about to burst” lands because it’s both funny and uncomfortably accurate.

Arguable claim: the album’s “romance” songs aren’t romantic—they’re about productivity getting derailed, and KADEEM. treats that like a spiritual event.

Those interludes aren’t filler—they’re the album’s trapdoor

Here’s where Highs + Lows quietly outplays a lot of records: the spoken pieces aren’t aesthetic breaks. They’re pressure points.

The intro’s voice—just a woman talking—hits harder than a lot of sung hooks because of the specificity. She describes a man she’d marry instantly if he called today. Not because he was flawless, but because what they had felt “as easy as breathing.” That’s the kind of line you don’t write to sound profound. You say it because it’s true and you’re annoyed it’s still true.

“Underwater” turns emotional availability into a literal distance measurement. DS1 talks about wading in: ankle deep is safe, come further—okay, but knee-deep is as far as he can go. Full immersion scares him and thrills him. The point isn’t the metaphor (it’s obvious). The point is he admits the limit out loud without dressing it up.

And “Self Love” has what sounds like an actual argument between two women, like someone hit record on a phone and forgot to “perform.” One insists all men cheat. The other snaps back, basically: you don’t know anything at twenty-five—men don’t cheat until you pick them. It’s messy, casual, and weirdly philosophical in the way real late-night kitchen conversations are. Nobody sounds scripted. Nobody sounds clean.

I’m not totally sure if every listener will want this much “real life” inside their headphones, but I can’t deny it works on me. The album’s sneakiest strength is letting people sound unsure without polishing the uncertainty off.

Arguable claim: these interludes do more storytelling than most concept albums with actual plots.

When the love songs get ugly, the album finally feels honest

From here, the record stops flirting and starts confessing.

“Lost in Time” with Lila Iké is the most painful kind of love song—the kind that doesn’t try to win. There’s a choir behind her, and her reggae-tinged phrasing keeps it human, not theatrical. She lays out contradictions like she’s reading her own texts back in the morning: distracted by pleasure, treated like leisure. She’s traveled everywhere and still can’t outrun the memory. She calls herself toxic and then still returns to the hook—“but I still want ya.” It’s plain honesty, bordering on embarrassing, and that’s exactly why it lands. The song doesn’t rescue her dignity. It just lets her talk.

“Focus” is where the album shows it can laugh without turning cynical. Deyah drops the sharpest, funniest verse here, and it’s funny because it’s pathetic in a recognizable way. She books a hotel with an infinity pool—pure modern romance theater—to impress someone who doesn’t even watch her Instagram story. Then she admits she’s joined “the queue of heartbreaks and pitiful gimmicks.” That’s not a punchline; it’s a bruise with good lighting.

And “Wish You Well” with J Warner is breakup bitterness in its least flattering form: “I hate to say it, but I wish you well/I hate that I do and it kills me.” That’s the good stuff—the complicated part people skip because it makes them sound petty. He’s furious he still cares. The song doesn’t resolve it. It just sits there simmering.

Mild criticism, though: in spots the smoothness starts to feel like a safety rail. KADEEM. loves a plush landing, and sometimes I kept waiting for one track to get a little less elegant—something to scuff the floor. The emotions are messy, but the sonics almost never are.

Arguable claim: the record’s prettiness occasionally dulls its teeth, even when the lyrics are trying to bite.

Sampa and Ghetts don’t “feature”—they take up space

The album’s emotional center of gravity shifts hard when Sampa the Great arrives, and I don’t think KADEEM. could’ve placed her better if he tried.

On “Self Love,” Sampa comes in calling herself “a fucking renegade” and a “degenerate,” then admits she’s been walking around like a healer while still bleeding under the bandages. The beat underneath staggers—double bass and heavy percussion giving it a weighted, off-balance feel. She barks her lines with a toughness the album’s softer stretch doesn’t prepare you for, and that whiplash feels intentional. The question she asks—“Whose healing the healer?”—doesn’t get answered. It just hangs there, which is the point.

Then Ghetts closes the record with “I Owe,” and it starts with a child’s prayer—like innocence being used as a doorway into something much more knotted. He prays for money, then corrects himself mid-thought, like he’s embarrassed to ask for the wrong thing and tries to pivot toward gratitude for health. He mentions his aunt’s chemotherapy with a blunt line that lands like a cold spoon: “Why can she go in the microwave?” He says he cried today and then keeps going, because stopping would mean dealing with it. At one point he even asks whether what he’s saying is a “bar from Ghetts or a verse from the Apostle Paul,” which is both self-mythologizing and strangely sincere—like he’s shocked by his own confession.

Behind him, the brass swells, and SheZar & The Soul Sirens carry the album out with “I owe it all to you.” It doesn’t feel like a neat ending. It feels like the curtain drops mid-prayer.

Arguable claim: Ghetts doesn’t “close” the album—he hijacks it, and the record is better for surrendering.

Devotion Pt. 2 is the album admitting what it’s really about

By the time Sophia Thakur shows up on “Devotion Pt. 2,” the album has circled the same wound enough times that the question finally comes out clearly.

She talks about doing the cute stuff—planning dates, building memories to fill the gaps, manufacturing closeness like it’s a DIY project. Then she says what she actually needs: to see someone act on love, to see devotion. It’s addressed to a specific man, sure, but it also feels like it’s aimed straight at KADEEM.’s whole arc.

Because that’s the subtext I can’t un-hear: KADEEM. has spent years acting on devotion for other artists—playing, writing, building the rooms where other people get to shine. Highs + Lows feels like him asking, without begging, whether anybody noticed. And the wild part is how he answers his own question: not by grabbing the mic, but by making a record where other people’s voices tell his story.

I’ll admit, my first impression was that the no-vocals choice might be a gimmick—a “look how tasteful I am” move. On second listen, it reads more like discipline. He’s not hiding. He’s directing.

Arguable claim: refusing to sing here isn’t modesty—it’s control, and it’s the album’s whole thesis.

Standout moments I kept replaying (for better and for worse)

This record rewards replay because the “plot” isn’t linear—it’s emotional, and it comes in fragments. The moments that stuck for me:

• “Lost in Time”: the hook’s brutal simplicity (“but I still want ya”) works because the song never tries to sanitize desire.
• “Self Love”: the conversation + Sampa’s entrance turns “self love” into something harsher than a slogan.
• “I Owe”: prayer as confession, confession as spiraling—Ghetts doesn’t polish anything, and that’s why it hits.

And yeah, there are places where I wanted KADEEM. to let a track get uglier sonically, to match the emotional mess. But maybe that’s his point: even when the feelings fall apart, the music keeps a straight face.

Arguable claim: the album’s restraint is either its classiest move—or its one real limitation, depending on your patience.

KADEEM. made Highs + Lows feel like a room full of people telling the truth while he stands in the corner, quietly controlling the lights. It’s a coming-out party where the host refuses to make a speech—because the whole party is the speech.

Our verdict: People who like ensemble-driven soul, spoken interludes that feel uncomfortably real, and guests who actually matter will love this. If you need the “main artist” to sing and claim the center like it’s a birthright, this album will annoy you in the most polite way possible.

• What is Highs + Lows trying to do with all the guest vocals?
  It turns KADEEM. into a director instead of a frontman—his identity shows up in arrangement, harmony, and how each voice is framed.
• Are the interludes worth paying attention to?
  Yes. They’re not palate cleansers; they’re where the album admits the messy stuff it won’t sing outright.
• Which track hits the hardest emotionally?
  “I Owe” goes deepest, mainly because it refuses to resolve anything and lets the confession stay tangled.
• Is this album more about love or ambition?
  Both, but it treats love as the thing that interrupts ambition—and then exposes how flimsy ambition can feel afterward.
• What should I play first if I only have ten minutes?
  Start with “Lost in Time” for the heartbreak, then jump to “Self Love” for the tonal shift into something heavier.

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