It’s been just over a year since April Kae’s bass cover of Grover Washington Jr’s “Just the Two of Us” went viral, racking up over 6 million views.
In the time since, she’s leveled up her career: dividing her time between New York and Los Angeles to play more music, moving out on her own after years of being roomies with her sister (and bandmate) in Harlem, and navigating her newly amplified voice online as an influencer and activist.
Over Zoom, we bond briefly over the utter embarrassment of being a creative, of having to put yourself on display. For Kae, finding her stride on social media has been like everything else in life — a matter of “trying everything and finding the sweet spot between what other people like and what feels genuine to me,” she says.
(April Kae photographed in the Knix x Betsey Johnson LuxeLift Pullover Bra and High Rise Essential Underwear in Flower Flourish)
Scrolling through her Instagram, you’ll find a seamless hodgepodge of groovy bass riffs, tallies of her favorite music and films, self-care wisdom, diary-style entries on her body-image struggles, and her musings on intersectional feminism (just to name a few). In its totality, she possesses the exuberant energy of a cool big sister.
Embracing the “cringe” is key to not overthinking her online persona — “I’m realizing more than ever that I just have to get over myself.” Taboo topics, like generating discourse around period underwear, come to mind for Kae (in reference to her recent partnership with Knix). “I'm the only bass player who also talks about periods and body image,” she quips.
On the topic of the inherent uneasiness of being an artist, I’m reminded of a Joan Didion quote: “The peculiarity of being a writer is that the entire enterprise involves the mortal humiliation of seeing one's own words in print.”
Reading it aloud, Kae is immediately reminded of a one-liner her editor pulled from a recent podcast episode. (Yes, in addition to all her endeavors, Kae is also the host of I See What You Mean — a podcast where she interviews other creatives on artistic freedom and living authentically.)
Pulling up the excerpt, she reads: “The agony of existence is that I have to create to be alive because it gives my life meaning, but it's also very difficult to create.” It’s piercingly true.
But having the space to create — however agonizing it may be, at times — is something Kae has fought hard for. After graduating from her degree in economics, she found herself working a relentless Wall Street job. After months of long hours and seven-day workweeks, she recalls coming home crying one day and thinking “I can’t do this anymore.”
It suddenly clicked that she was on the wrong path, that she should be pursuing her creative drives. She took the weekend to mull it over before swiftly resigning, but that’s not to say she’s completely abandoned her affinity for the analytical.
She confesses, for instance, to still doing her own taxes as a means of channeling her inner-economist. “I like understanding the way money affects people’s decisions,” she says. Understanding the flow of capital, for her, is a way of gauging economic disparity — “I’m interested in how we help the folks who are struggling the most.”
(April Kae pictured in the Knix x Betsey Johnson Evolution Bra and Super Leakproof Dream Short in Teal Rose Fête)
Today, it’s her work as a sessional bassist and as one half of the sister-duo IMANIGOLD that occupies most of her time. April helms the bass, guitar, and synths, collaborating on the lyrics and vocals with her sister, Nikki, who hones the band’s visual identity.
Last year the band released their first single “Ride On,” an ode to their adolescence and journey as sisters. “Tired and young we ride on,” the chorus incants against a nostalgic backdrop of footage of them as kids and teenagers in the song’s music video.
A self-proclaimed mix of Alabama Shakes, Florence and the Machine, and Solange, their forthcoming EP leans into the folk hymns they grew up on. When pressed on her creative process, Kae says she likes to start with a drum beat or base line before layering on the vocals. “I feel like I finally get to play bass, which is what I want.”
Kae likens her chosen instrument to a heartbeat, or a cat purring. She’s sensitive to sound, but finds the deep tones of the bass soothing and inviting. “It feels like a weighted blanket,” she says, “I want to add to the larger tapestry with something that can help glue it together, and I think that’s a really special role that I enjoy.”
Being community-minded, she’s always attentive to how her creations speak to others. Music, to her, is a form of service — and she wants to know what people are getting out of it.
Her band's upcoming single, “Comfort and Sound,” she says, is a testament to that sentiment. “It’s all about that burrowing feeling of comfort and joy.”