I wrote “Arike” in 2023. At this time, I was doing a lot of songwriting for other musicians, and it
was while doing this that I met The Kazez (credited producers). After I played some of my writings
for them, they advised that I make my own music. They helped install FL Studio on my laptop and gave
me a recording preset to try out at home because there wasn’t any electricity at the time. I went to
a friend’s studio and started the production with FL Keys and simple drums. I layered the intro and
wrote the full song on that. The recording and writing took about seven hours! Initially, I hated
how the vocals sounded, and I was close to deleting the whole thing and just sticking to
songwriting. I said a little prayer and left the studio to get food. When I came back, it sounded
like a new song! I woke the engineer in the house, and his eyes were teary hearing the first demo. I
sent it back to The Kazez, and they invited me over. While they were beefing up the drums and adding
other elements, I had the inspiration for the vocals you hear under the chorus. I shared it with
them, and we recorded it. At that point, I knew we had done something really special.
