I was in Atlantic City for a weekend with Kyle Wolf ’25. It was there, in the Bally’s hotel somewhere above the casinos, that I asked if he wanted to make some music. We both brought MIDI keyboards when we met at his car before the trip, pointing at each other like that Spider-Man meme.
Courtesy of Sofia Egol
He hadn’t made afrobeats before, but I was curious about his limits. We listened to Tyla’s “Water” for reference, and Kyle replicated the drums. I envied that he could do it without any serious effort — it was just a matter of listening to the first 30 seconds of the song and tapping the pattern on the piano. But he couldn’t let the song contain him; he let go of the reference and it became some sort of jazz fusion.