Music
Review: kwn at Jazz Cafe, 13/10/25
The R&B singer proved that her whirlwind success in 2025 is not a fluke, but simply the beginning of an illustrious career ahead.
In a year, kwn has managed to go from selling hard copies of her breakout single ‘Worst Behaviour’ for £1.99 with her manager, to touring with Kehlani on her Crash World Tour at the top of 2025, playing the main stage at Wireless Festival, and selling out her debut tour, with all due respect. Though you would never be able to tell that her Jazz Cafe show was her first London stop on her first headline show. In fact, it almost feels too small for her stardom – emphasised by the packed venue of enthused fans singing every word of every song, and kwn herself remarking that this show is probably the last time she can do something this intimate. “I want to be selling out stadiums,” she tells us all earnestly after performing ‘Bite Me’ on entry.
It’s clear that kwn is not only one of UK R&B’s most prominent emerging stars, but an artist with a laser-sharp direction and focus. Lyrically, her music explores the trials and tribulations of love and relationships – which doesn’t sound that distinct from the usual subjects discussed in R&B – except kwn is unabashedly queer in her storytelling. She leaves no room for doubt, her music is by a queer woman who has had experiences with other queer women, and will not be forced to inhabit a “conventional” heteronormative idea of femininity. This is also reflected in the audience; an audience brimming queer people of colour, excited to hear their relationships and experiences reflected in modern R&B. kwn performs ‘Stand On It’ with the cool and calm demeanour she’s become known for, while the audience sings “I do get jealous, but I’m not embarrassed/ ain’t gon’ love you in private” with fervour back to her. This is a room celebrating the triumphant success of one of their own, and it’s not lost on any of us that a masc-presenting woman singing about queer relationships is a huge feat in an increasingly hostile sociopolitical climate.
And it’s not lost on kwn that there is true love and gratitude in the room for her. From introducing her family, who are sitting up in the balcony, to the audience, to shouting out her childhood friends and school teachers who also came to support her. To receiving gifts from superfans (a lego set and a used bra…), and to the sea of phones in the audience who had facetimed the fans who couldn’t make it to the gig but still wanted to show their support. The room was brimming with warmth and community as kwn’s distinct and unwavering vocals serenaded us with all her fan-favourite hits; ‘Eyes Wide Open’, ‘Do What I Say’, ‘Talk You Through it’. The latter featured an impromptu a cappella vocal performance from the whole audience, who sang each member of Flo’s verse word for word and bar for bar, while kwn looked at her fans with pride and disbelief.
There were also welcome surprises, for example, kwn’s soulful cover of ‘Escape (The Piña Colada Song)’ by Rupert Holmes, and the singer inviting a fan on stage to sing Kehlani’s verse on ‘Clothes Off’. It was an intimate show made possible by the loving and community feeling fostered by the Jazz Cafe, and one that we will never forget. When we look back on kwn’s ascent, this is will be one of those historic moments future fans will wish to have been a part of.
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