Kobe’s new EP 24, released November 1, lands like a deep exhale after years spent holding his breath. Written and recorded between Mississippi, Idaho, and Washington from 2023 to 2024, the project carries the weight of a turbulent stretch in his life, looking back at an abusive relationship, a collapsing distribution deal, and the gut-punch of losing over 40,000 streams and thousands of listeners overnight. Instead of folding, Kobe rebuilt. And this record, shaped in isolation and grit, is really just our artist crawling his way back to himself. It’s indie rock with a singer-songwriter backbone, flecked with pop sensibilities and stitched together with a survivor’s honesty. Influences like Eric Church, Mike Posner, Dijon, and Nate Ruess show up in flashes, but the voice behind it all is unmistakably his.
“Old” kicks things off with strumming guitars and steady drums, the kind that feel like an old engine warming up. Kobe’s high, husky voice hovers above it all, reflective and suspended, singing about aging before you feel ready for it. There’s a philosophical ache in the way he watches friends marry and drift forward while he stands still, taking stock of time.
Then “One More Night in Boston” tumbles in with rumbling, bustling drums and those catchy melodic guitars that feel like streetlights blurring past a cab window. Kobe sings slowly, almost trailing like someone half-drunk on nostalgia—or maybe something stronger—as he leans into the lucid dreaminess of “One more night in Boston feels like a dream.”
“Maybe It’s the Drugs” stands as the EP’s emotional fault line. High-shimmering instrumentation, punchy beats, writhing strings, and his voice quivering on the edge of falling apart. He sounds unstable, high, heartbroken, and painfully self-aware. His lyrics cut with uncomfortable honesty, especially the bridge, “Maybe it’s the drugs, or the bugs, or the love I don’t feel.”
The closer, “Yesterdays / Just Like the Sun,” softens into plucked guitars and swelling orchestral shimmer. He sings about dreaming of better days while living in the past, stuck in memories he can’t shake. It’s a quiet, aching finish, like a sunrise you’re still not ready to step into.
24 is Kobe’s clean slate. It’s determined, and full of bruised beauty. It doesn’t just show who he is at 24—it shows who he refuses to stop becoming.
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Review by: Naomi Joan