Feb 24, 2023

By Caleb Campbell

Over the past few years, Massachusetts singer/songwriter Kimaya Diggs has been steadily finding her voice, inhabiting a style of indie pop that is earnest, emotive, and danceable. She debuted in 2018 with her full-length record Breastfed, but has spent much of the ensuing years navigating a series of losses, including a severe vocal injury and the deaths of a close friend, her mother, and her beloved dog Quincy.

Her sophomore LP, Quincy, is partially a narrative of these losses, but equally finds Diggs looking forward, taking comfort in community and working with a range of close collaborators including her partner and her best friends. The record also joyously stretches out of her comfort zone, incorporating hints of soul, R&B, folk, and indie rock into her songwriting. Diggs has already shared the record’s lead single, “If you love me,” and today she’s back with the album’s second and final single, “Rainbow,” premiering with Under the Radar.

On “Rainbow” Diggs carefully crafts a simmering indie pop ballad, shaded with R&B grooves and soul harmonies. The track floats gently on beds of dreamy synths, twinkling keys, winding rhythms, and glimmering guitar line, encasing Digg’s vocals in waves of pillowy melodic beauty. Yet, the track also has hints of underlying tension, captured within co-writer and producer Jacob Rosazza’s rippling delayed piano and novel chord changes. Together, Diggs and Rosazza lean into her honeyed vocals, but also leave room for unexpected subtleties, making for a hypnotic dance of alluring tones.

“Rainbow is about the tension inherent in a relationship between two fiercely independent people,” says Diggs. “Many of the songs on the album return to sky imagery – the moon and sun, the rainbow – and focus on how all of these forces of nature coexist and interact, whether they’re in conflict or in harmony.”

Check out the track below. Quincy is out everywhere on March 9th.