Why Roman Kayz’s “trilogy” Will Still Break Your Heart, One Year Later
Released in 2023, the trilogy represented a turning point in the singer’s life and became his most honest music to date. The second edition of The Reissues Project examines why.
i can’t afford to love you, 2023
Read the first installment of The Reissues Project here.
Roman Kayz is having a miserable birthday in the music video for “how do i make you stay?”. The balloons have almost deflated and the “happy birthday” sign has begun to sag. The bright birthday stickers stuck to the window behind the singer look as if they are mocking him with their cheeriness. Now that the party is over, it’s just him and the girl he’s trying to win back. “Tell me the fucking way,” he sings in the chorus. Eventually, Roman gets sick of pleading and takes a hammer to the decorations. He’ll fuck this all up himself.
So comes the midpoint of Roman’s excellent trilogy, three songs released over five months during 2023 that traced the end of a relationship that was inspired by Roman’s first major relationship in his personal life. The first, “like you said you would”, covers the moment Roman learned his girlfriend would be leaving to a distant part of the country to pursue her dreams, which ultimately led to the end of the relationship. The follow-up track, “how do i make you stay?”, rolls back the film to a moment earlier in the relationship when things started to fall apart and he tried to change the inevitable outcome. And the finale, “i can’t afford to love you” acted as a resolution to the story, a rather bleak acceptance of what time has done to the pair and a realization that the chapter must now be closed for good.
the trilogy’s lyrics come out in a mouthful of confessions, as if Roman thoughts are spilling onto the page before he can stop them. In the final track, “i can’t afford to love you”, the lyrics read like dialogue. “I’m acting fine,” he sings before he admits, “I’m terrified”. Later as his ex “slides away to get some drinks” at the party, Roman reasons that it must be the vodka talking before he adds, “I swear I’m never like this.” In “like you said you would”, he sings quietly, “The voice message you left the day you left for your dream/ I still have it on my phone and play it back when I sleep.”
Throughout the trilogy, Roman grapples with how important - or insigificant - the relationship was to the girl that once promised him “forever”. “You’re doing so fine, like how?” he asks almost incredulously on “how do i make you stay?” then sings, “I wonder what I meant to you.” It’s these clear-eyed descriptions of heartbreak that have stuck out to me the most.
When he talked about the music on his TikToks, Roman would often joke that if you liked his music you probably are severely depressed or need to be in therapy. That tracks, I thought when I saw this video last year. We all could probably use a good therapist.
like you said you would, 2023
the trilogy was a departure for Roman. Though he had been recording and releasing music for nearly five years, the trilogy was the beginning of a shift from the R&B/hip-hop influenced music he made in his teens to the alternative/indie-pop style of music that is reminiscent of acts like The 1975, Phoebe Bridgers, and Holly Humberstone. In his early days, Roman was still trying to find his identity by emulating artists he looked up to. The results varied. Sometimes, like on the track “seoul girl”, the lyrics are vulgar: “In the penthouse/ We would make out/ But I know what she want, give me head now,” he sings in one of the most memorable lines. Other times, like on the G. Nine collaboration “love me”, he admits he’s thinking about an ex as he’s with his new lover. “I’m sorry I don’t even love you,” they sing in the chorus, “but I know you love me.”
But before Roman could speak the truth, he had to stay true to himself. That acceptance came with the shift in his music. His new musical identity was a result of his journey to define his identity as an individual, a process that has been going on since he was a teenager. the trilogy was the moment he finally settled with the identity crisis he faced during his teen years due to his multicultural background. Now, Roman leans harder into telling us honestly about how he feels, even if sometimes those thoughts are not easy to untangle. Take, for example, how Roman is still bargaining on “how do i make you stay?” when he sings, “I’m typing sentences that I’m probably gonna delete.” There’s so many things Roman wants to say, so much that doesn’t make sense that the only thing he knows for sure is the line, “I swear my life was perfect next to you.”
He writes pointedly, too, about the pangs of rejection when he sees photos of his ex out with her new friends. Roman wasn’t selfish: He was glad she seemed in a good place, but he was broken over the fact that she found happiness so quickly outside of him. “I couldn’t understand how you’d give up all that we had,” he admits on “like you said you would”. “I don’t know what I can do to ease the pain, I’ll go mad.” Maybe that’s because he knows he’s lost something more valuable than simply love; he’s also lost the idea of a future together. “We could’ve lived together like you always wanted to,” he sings in the chorus.
Roman never claims to handle the ending perfectly. In the same song, he writes about trying nearly everything to dull the pain: “midnight racing”, late night parties, substances and flings. In the music video for “like you said you would”, Roman stumbles home with a Nikola Ultra can in hand. Surrounding him as he sings are empty beer bottles from late nights. At one point he falls into a pool with a bouquet of flowers in his hand. As he goes underwater he lifts the flowers up lightly, a last attempt to save a fate already sealed. But what can ease the sting of a broken heart? Nothing can cut through the feeling that he’s lost a part of himself.
how do i make you stay?, 2023
When I think about Roman at his best, though, I’m reminded that it’s been in his ability to offer comfort to his listeners. Consider “it’s okay to not be okay”, a track from 2020 that became one of his most popular songs. “Sometimes it’s better to be a bit lonely,” he tells a girl. But ultimately, Roman wants to be the one who she confides in; the one who she looks to for safety. “Let me know about your little darkness,” he encourages because no matter what, “I’m ready to fall in love regardless.”
The comfort Roman offers on the trilogy is less explicit. Instead, he’s waving the white flag, feeling as lost and confused as the rest of us. Lately, this kind of bluntness is what I like to listen to most on late night walks through my neighborhood. On these nights, I wind through streets with names like West or North that twist and turn past imposing homes built in the early 20th century. Sometimes I’ll stop by a creek that runs past cozy homes with inviting living rooms illuminated by full-length windows. Often what I’m doing on these walks is imagining another life for myself, one where I’m not feeling melancholy or where I’m with someone I love. I don’t talk much about this with friends. Instead, I just listen to The Trilogy and feel my way through the emotions.
I believe that the best music takes time to inject itself into your veins. This is true of The Trilogy, which took time to reveal not just the sadness but the ultimate respect and tenderness Roman felt for the unsalvageable relationship, which in the end he chose himself over. Maybe he couldn’t ever say these words to his past lover, but he could still put them in a song that will stay in history forever, forgotten or not. In the rapidly-changing music industry where many artists are releasing disposable music that will be forgotten after days of virality, Roman’s has only grown in meaning for me over the past year. He knows that to be a great artist you have to be uncompromising with your vision and sometimes go against what is selling. Where many artists value their public image over saying anything of substance, Roman has chosen to say how he feels. If that makes others uncomfortable, he really doesn’t care. One night on my walk as I round a corner I think, at least he’s brave enough to say it.
trilogy archives:
(behind the scenes) Roman Kayz - how do i make you stay?
(behind the scenes) Roman Kayz - like you said you would
Roman’s interview about the trilogy on Bias Wrecker
