A promising newcomer arrives with flowers for his younger self. Imagined as a chapter-by-chapter exploration of the anchors of his adolescence, EKENE’s Little Us is a debut that turns the singer’s innermost thoughts into praxis for a generation wrestling for autonomy and self-expression. From the outset, he’s honest about the tempestuous nature of his relationship with his mum on “Lullaby”: “Mum, please snap out of it,” he sings. “Don’t be scared, I’m your son.” It’s the first in a series of diaristic dispatches that collapse the boundaries between religion, grief, perception of country, and ecstasy without blunting their manifestations. “But now you think/Are these your thoughts, are these your notions?” he asks, after reeling out a series of koan-like questions about the tenets of faith and propriety on “Epiphany”. On “4 Square Ft.”, EKENE is folding metaphors of Nigerian pentecostal culture into a broader consideration of mortality and grief. There’s bone-deep agonising about a death on “Farewell”. “I pray the heaven gates will take you from the one you passed on through,” he sings. They set the tone for a contemplative landing for Little Us, one that sees EKENE writing to a younger version of himself with a poignant status update. “There was no one at the end of the trauma you’ve been through,” he intones on “Feedback”. "Promise when we bend, don’t break.”