Single Review: The Game by Kisa
Twenty-one-year-old up-and-coming alternative pop artist Kisa offers an unapologetically powerful introduction to her boundless talent in debut single “The Game.” This three-minute track is temptingly dark, drawing you in with sultry percussion and infectious pop melodies that burst into a kaleidoscope of electro-pop greatness in the chorus. The overarching message is one of great importance, confronting harmful societal notions head-on and dismantling them with grace and heart-rattling force.
Kisa has been living out her artistic nature through various outlets since she was young. The Russian-Ukranian Los Angeles native has found herself experimenting with mediums like acting, poetry, songwriting, and dance, having utilized vigorous training in the arts to expand her access to her individuality on a self-exploratory stay in Ukraine years ago. She brought back to LA an understanding of art as a means of communication, dedicating herself to using this mode of communication wisely in delivering messages important to her through her music, visual art, and body movement. Launching her career as a musician on the heels of her college graduation, she additionally brings ongoing training in heels dance and pole and experience studying makeup and digital art to the table, offering a plethora of multifaceted talent to culminate in one robustly creative project.
Kisa, photo by Alevtyna Lopatonok
“The Game” is the first taste offered of said project, and it hits every enticing mark that exists and then some. This track sees Kisa at her breaking point with catering to society’s expectations for how she must present herself, calling out the holes in the ideology that prioritizes what we look like above who we are inside. It’s directed toward a particular source of judgment, additionally highlighting Kisa’s frustration with this person’s self-entitlement and romantic advances toward her. This person looks at Kisa as someone who needs them and their strict adherence to unfounded societal claims on her appearance, and they are sorely mistaken — a message she sends loudly and clearly through lyrics that don’t shy away from the hardest-hitting honesty.
The bass-driven, synthy verses offer sprinklings of kalimba and additional instrumental experimentation underlying Kisa’s vocals, which come across as skin-crawling in a Billie Eilish-esque manner but with a poppier infusion that furthers their intoxicating effect. Led into by lyrics, ‘What is this damn game we play? I think I’ve had enough,’ the chorus is a standout in this work, riddled with pulsating instrumentals that swim around each other in controlled confusion, colliding with a spirit of letting go. It offers a release for every time beauty standards have warped a part of your self-perception, giving you those stolen parts of yourself back. In all of her mighty layers of wide-ranged, authentic talent, Kisa possesses the kind of unique promise in this genre that you struggle to come across and are damn lucky to bear witness to.
This song and all of its accompanying art through imagery, makeup, and dance documented over on Kisa’s Instagram are proof of this promising talent, which those of us here at Tongue Tied simply cannot wait to watch blossom into all of the wild, beautiful, and deserved success headed her way.
For more on Kisa, check out her website here and stream “The Game” on Spotify.
Review by: Tori Coker
