All Highs and No Lows Listening to Lolo Zouai’s High Highs to Low Lows

I remember discovering Lolo Zouai, sitting in a library smack in the middle of the weekday grind, on a cloudy gray afternoon. Zouai’s “High Highs to Low Lows” quite literally woke me up from the dreariness of school work and coaxed me right back to the present. An instant fan, I spent the rest of my evening exploring her music instead of my biochemistry homework.

It makes sense that I came across “High Highs to Low Lows” first, because that was, and still is, her most popular track. With over 14 million plays on Spotify today, this was the song that initially opened up doors for Zouai with record labels, many of which came knocking at her door after she made it onto Spotify’s U.S. trending charts in 2019.

Everything Zouai broaches in her music is based on her own emotional experiences, and upon a closer listen, her lyrical talent becomes obvious. In several interviews, Zouai mentions that her upbringing wasn’t all that lavish, and In “High Highs to Low Lows,” she talks about these struggles, from “getting paid minimum wage” to “no gold on her neck,” and you can feel her strong pang of desire for a better life. Claiming to still be a broke person at heart, she incorporates images of a class commentary in her music that is deeply personal and relevant to her life before success.

I was excited to learn Zouai’s fresh, edgy voice is actually familiar to our very own Bay Area. Born in Paris, she moved to San Francisco as an infant, and lived there pretty much until her music began taking off, which is when she moved to New York. Her physical environment has always strongly influenced her personal brand. From the R&B and hip-hop scene of the musically illustrious Bay Area, to the gritty, grungy aspects of New York day-to-day life, she is sensitive to the sounds that surround her. Zouai claims this is exactly how she likes it; rejecting the more polished and perfect, she molds her music into a better representation of herself. Although now signed, Zouai began her journey as an independent artist, which granted her a lot more fulfillment and creative freedom to incorporate such themes important to her.

Her music encapsulates plenty of duality. The most obvious binary is her half-French, half-Algerian ethnicity. With a French mother and Algerian father, Zouai and her music balance the sounds of two cultures: “High Highs to Low Lows” is aptly described as having “French lyrics with an Arabic melody.” Having had widespread music exposure from a young age, she feels inclined to make her own music globally accessible as well. Growing up, she noticed the frequent inclusion of languages like Spanish, but scarcely French, in Western popular music – something she hoped to change. One of the things that drew me most to Zouai’s music were her microtonal riffs and motifs that are so reminiscent of Eastern music. These, often paired with French lyrics and phrases, make her tracks refreshingly unique and attract audiences from both places, and everywhere else in between.

In her interviews, Zouai also mentions this duality in her lyrics. Many of the themes in her songs, as she’s noticed, have been misinterpreted by her listeners. Some presume, for example, that her song “Desert Rose,” with its thick, alluring production, pertains to sex, but it’s actually about Zouai’s bittersweet relationship with her family. Similarly, “Beaucoup” is a song fully in French characterized by a beautiful melody and Zouai’s delicate vocals. While it sounds perfectly sweet, the words describe break up in a notably stinging, harsh manner. Similarly, her soft, girlish voice only contrasts the otherwise often mature themes she sings about in her music. Zouai’s music brims with such subtle double meaning, where her words say one thing, but her voice another.

Aside from music, Zouai is vocal about her passion for fashion. Even before she started making music, she was receiving plenty of attention for her standout style that became popular on social media platforms. Her dual passion begs further consideration of how music and fashion intersect as art forms, and may be a collaboration we’ll see from her in the future. She has been an unwavering voice on fashion as a means of self-expression and public statement, and despite her newfound fame and money, would support thrift stores over designer stores any day.

Lolo Zouai was set to open for Dua Lipa on tour throughout the summer of 2020, but the pandemic obviously had other plans. In an interview, she talks about her experience during this quarantine era as being musically fertile, as the presently Brooklyn-based singer has been recording and producing pieces at home. She’s accepted this period of time as one of growth, during which she’s developing her artistry and getting ready for her post-pandemic tour. With the promise of this, I’m excited to see how this growth will manifest into her music — I’m buying concert tickets to watch her live as soon as I can.

Written by Sanjana Sanghani