Behind the EP
Ever hit rock bottom so hard you start wondering if there's another floor beneath it?
That was me sometime last year.
Unemployment had landed on my shoulders like a stubborn storm. One of those seasons where you stare at your degree and wonder if all those late-night study sessions were just an elaborate prank life played on you.
At the same time, I was holding onto a version of love that felt more like survival than affection. I thought maybe it would give me something to hold onto. Instead, it taught me something even more important: sometimes the only person meant to carry you through the dark is you.
What I didn't realise in that moment was that my music was quietly growing.
While everything else in my life felt like it was collapsing, creativity was building pressure beneath the surface. And pressure, when you handle it right, makes diamonds.
Every morning I would wake up and spend the first hour staring at the ceiling, doing mental arithmetic with my life: unemployed, broke, ambitious and somehow still hopeful. It was a strange contradiction. Young, educated, talented... yet feeling invisible inside a system that didn't seem to have a seat reserved for me.
So I did what artists have always done throughout history.
Job applications by day, music composition by night, and recording whenever I could.
Outside my window, the country was vibrating with tension. Maandamano in the streets. Political debates in matatus. Conversations about taxes, corruption and survival. It felt like everyone around me was carrying something heavy inside their chest.
Escaping would have been easier. But instead, I turned the pressure into sound.
That's how BLACK was born.
Not from luxury. Not from comfort. But from exhaustion, reflection and the stubborn belief that something meaningful can grow out of difficult seasons.
BLACK is not just a musical project; it is a timestamp.
Why name the EP BLACK?
For a while, I debated naming the EP 254Flow, but then I realised something: 254Flow is just one expression of the larger story. Calling the entire project that would limit it to a location, when the truth is much bigger.
BLACK, to me, is not sadness. BLACK is depth. It is the colour of the soil we come from. The colour of resilience. The colour that absorbs everything and still holds its shape. BLACK represents the silent understanding between people who have faced pressure and decided to rise anyway.
Black on black, paint my dreams on that.
Even when life feels dark, it is still a canvas.
The moment Kenya is living in
Kenya is slowly moving toward another election cycle in 2027. Anyone who has lived here long enough knows the emotional weight political seasons carry: the frustration, the hope, the anger and the endless debates.
This EP isn't propaganda. It's perspective. It's what life feels like for a young Kenyan trying to build a future in a country that is still figuring itself out.
Track by track
254FLOW
This is the voice of the streets. I wrote this song right after leaving campus, navigating job applications, interviews and the quiet panic that arrives when the world suddenly expects you to have everything figured out.
254Flow is not just about unemployment. When I featured Brima Maovete, he brought in the layer that mentions patriotic revolution, overtaxation, bad and dormant leaders, amassed budgets, national debts and injustice, just to mention a few.
The hook, “254 yeah I still got the flow”, is both confidence and protest. Because no matter how heavy things get, Kenyan creativity refuses to die.
We still speak.
We still rap.
We still create.
BLACK
If this EP had a spine, this would be it. This song explores identity and resistance.
Being a Black woman in today's world means carrying both softness and armour. Sometimes you have to wear a gangster mask just to protect your peace. But beneath that armour, the spirit is still there. Still dreaming. Still creating. Still refusing to shrink.
Tears of Gold
This is the sound of the grind. Everyone celebrates success, but very few talk about the pressure that comes before it: the sleepless nights, the sacrifices and the moments when you question whether you're crazy for believing in your dreams.
“Tears of Gold” is a reminder that struggle is not wasted energy. Sometimes pain is simply raw material waiting to be refined.
Talk
The quietest song on the project and maybe the most necessary.
In a society where everyone is carrying something heavy, silence can become dangerous. “Talk” is about vulnerability. About creating spaces where people can finally exhale. Because sometimes healing begins with something simple: a conversation.
The visual language of BLACK
The cover art shows me dressed in black, standing against the Kenyan flag. That contrast is intentional. The flag represents the country where these struggles live. The black clothing represents the strength required to move through them. This project is deeply Kenyan and BLACK.
But the emotions inside it belong to anyone who has ever had to fight quietly for their future.
What I hope you feel
If you listen to BLACK during a difficult season, I hope you feel less alone.
If you listen while building your dreams, I hope it fuels your courage.
If you listen while feeling frustrated with the system, I hope the music helps you transform that anger into power.
Music cannot fix a country. But it can give people the energy to keep going and sometimes, that's enough.
A note from me
This EP became something unexpected. A cushion I can fall on when life gets heavy again. Because cycles repeat. Struggle returns. But when we turn those experiences into art, into music, into community, even our hardest seasons begin to mean something.
And eventually... tears turn to gold.
- Owirri
If BLACK resonates with your story, share it with someone who might need it too. Because in the end, we're all documenting this era together.