Although she’d been releasing music since 2016, it wasn’t until 2020 that things began to crystallize for Kenyan singer-songwriter, guitarist, and producer Njerae. “I joined a bunch of music development courses and schools just to sharpen my talent, and learn the whole business part of it,” she tells Apple Music. “After high school, I didn’t even want to go to uni—I wanted to go to the Sauti Academy [the talent incubator founded by celebrated Afropop band Sauti Sol]. I’m very introverted, and I needed to be in a space where I was forced to interact. I knew I could sing and write music, but a lot of my influence was also very Western. I looked up to Tori Kelly and that kind of music—so Sauti Academy also helped me sort of ‘Kenyanize’ my sound. I wasn’t even writing in Swahili—that’s where I started to practice that kind of thing, and now I just love writing in Swahili.” In the years that followed, she refined her guitar skills and even learned how to produce, releasing her first album, Unintentional in 2022, followed by her breakout, love-centric songs—2023’s “OTD” and 2024’s “Aki Sioni”—which earned her chart success and an Africa Choice Award nomination for Underground Artist of the Year. On her 2025 EP Four Letter Word, the Afropop star offers four case studies about love, unpacked through fluid blends of English and Kikuyu. “I’m typically a lover girl,” Njerae says. “And I wanted something that’s, yes, about love, but not necessarily. Therefore, letter one could be anything, just depending on how you interpret it. The four different songs are the different stages of being infatuated with someone. You start from liking someone and then there’s lust, and then you fall, and then you know you’re in love, and then at the end of it you might hate them. I wanted it to be open to interpretation for anything.” Here, she talks us through the EP, track by track. “Fight for You” “‘Fight for You’ was actually, I think, one of the hardest songs to write on the EP, because I think when I was writing it, I wasn’t in that space of ‘fight for you’. I was in a very empowered space, and the track was not needing empowered energy. So that song really took time, but I’ve worked with amazing producers. Magik [Usman Adams, aka Wondamagik], the one who produced that song, took me very slowly and we went through it together. It’s a very cute song—yes, you found love, but are you going to take that love the way you want it, or according to that person? The song says, ‘If you don’t fight me, I’ll fight for you.’ I’m simping, yes, but I’m not coming with depressed energy.” “Beg for It” “‘Beg for It’ is my baby. I wrote this in 2021. I was listening to a lot of Nick Jonas and the way he writes music…you’re pleading; you can feel the pain from just the song itself, whether you sing it or someone else sings it. That’s what I wanted in ‘Beg for It.’ I don’t know why it needed to be the specific words ‘beg for it,’ but it’s giving begging, so it worked out well. And this year I’m all about shooting my shot, being straightforward, not wasting time.” “Decide” “‘Decide’ is written from a point of view where, ‘I’ve already given you what you want, but clearly we are not communicating, so just decide what it is that you want and tell me, because I don’t understand. I’m doing everything, but it seems I’m just pissing you off.’ With relationships, they say it’s a two-way street, right? It’s give and receive, but you’re not just giving what you want to give, you have to give what the person [wants and needs]. I’m in a very self-aware space, love-wise. This is how it is, and if you don’t want [it], tell me so I can move on. [Writing Kikuyu lyrics] wasn’t intentional, to be honest—the Kikuyu-ness in it didn’t come up until we were in the studio, recording. And that space just felt empty. Honestly, there was no other word, or no other language, or anything that made sense, it just needed Kikuyu. I think it gives you a lot of room to say so many things without clouding the song.” “Hypnotize” “With ‘Hypnotize,’ I was thinking of how you save someone’s number on your phone with their picture there and imagine a situation where you’re stressed, annoyed, pissed off, and this person calls and their picture comes up on your phone. You completely forget everything that happens, because just the way they look at you finishes you. Even with the way the track was created, there’s a sort of hypnotizing element. When you hear it, it sounds like it’s giving snake vibes. What is it about a human being that can hypnotise you? It’s not usually how they talk or things like that—it’s the tiniest things, like their eyes, but it’s not [always] something that everyone sees. But that one person can fall [in love] because of someone’s eyes—that could be disgusting to other people.”