Rising music artist Noah Kahan has steadily been gaining popularity over the past year due to both his heartfelt lyrics and his recent collaborations with already established music artists. On Jan. 19, Kahan and Sam Fender released a collaboration over Kahan’s original song “Homesick.” Kahan’s music is well known for how it encompasses feelings of nostalgia for a person’s hometown. In this particular song, Kahan describes the dirt roads and history behind the town he grew up in.
Much like the rest of Kahan’s collaborations with other artists, the re-released song mostly has the same lyrics as the original but now contains a single stanza towards the beginning with entirely new lyrics being sung by the collaborating artist. While in the song collaboration with Fender, the part detailing Kahan’s personal history was written out, Fender continues the spirit of Kahan’s lyrics in how he includes metaphors and allusions to his hometown North Shields, England, where Fender grew up, and his complicated history with it.
Folk-pop singer-songwriter Kahan has been writing music since 2016. However, it was not until the release of his single “Young Blood” on Spotify in 2017 that Kahan started to gain attention as an artist. Then, in 2019, Kahan put out his first official studio album, “Busyhead,” with Republic Records. It was with the same company that Kahan released the hit album “Stick Season” in 2022. Because of this album, Kahan has been steadily gaining popularity over the past year with hit songs like “Stick Season” or “Northern Attitude.”
Fender is an indie and alternative music artist from England. In 2013, at the age of eighteen, Fender was discovered by Owain Davies, a music manager. Davies proceeded to book the young, upcoming musician small music gigs, playing supporting acts for other artists. Due to a health scare, Fender took a two year hiatus from the music scene when he was twenty. However, he returned in 2017 with his debut single “Play God,” which premiered on BBC Radio 1. A year later, Fender signed with the German-British record label, Polydor Records. It is with this company that he released the single “Dead Boys,” the song that made him a known name in mainstream music media. While Fender has put out multiple other singles over the years, the song that most people know him for is “Seventeen Going Under,” the title song for his second album.
While not polar opposites, Fender and Kahan do not fall within the same music genre. Typically, this would be a red flag when it comes to music collaborations: original lyrics are changed too much in order to fit with the guest musician’s style, beats are thrown off, or the overall message of the song simply becomes lost. This was seen in Kahan’s collaboration with Post Malone in the song “Dial Drunk.” Post Malone is most commonly known as a hip-hop or rap artist. This style of music does not mix well with folk. In the collaborating song, a more hip-hopish beat was overlaid on top of the song’s original track. However, this overlay was not consistent; instead, it was only for the single stanza that Post Malone interjected with his own twist on the song.
Surprisingly though, this was not the case for Fender and Kahan’s collaboration. While Fender is more on the indie alternative genre of music, the song still manages to stay within the folk category. The pitches of their voices are similar enough that they blend together for the melody. Not to mention, the transition from the original lyrics to the new ones is smooth and fluid. Fender is known for the amount of emotion that he puts into his music, as is Kahan. Despite Fender typically being more political in his music, his collaborating lyrics with Kahan conveys the same feelings that Kahan’s other songs hold: nostalgia. Overall, the collaboration between Kahan and Fender is one of the upcoming musician’s best musical outreaches due to how the emotions conveyed in the song are similar to those in Kahan’s other pieces.
Over the past year, Kahan has been collaborating with other artists, such as Post Malone, Lizzy McAlphine, Zach Bryan and Hozier, on select songs from his most recent album, Stick Season (We’ll All Be Here Forever). Recently, Kahan announced that he would be releasing an album compiling all of his collaborations sometime in the near future. This album will include the not yet released song collaborations of “Paul Revere” with Gregory Alan Isakov and “You’re Gonna Go Far” with Brandi Carlile. By working with other artists, Kahan has been able to reach a wider audience.
During the 2024 Grammys, Kahan was nominated for the award: best new artist. While he did not win, the recognition of his accomplishments as an artist from other music writers and fans, was enough for Kahan. He is excited to continue writing new music while fans of Kahan wait with anticipation to see what he will do next.
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