Danni Baylor SHARES DEBUT EP THINGS ABOUT THE WORLD THAT BURDEN ME

'KOOLADE' begins in motion a narrow synth loop, taut and repetitive, and Danni’s voice right on top of it. There’s no swell, no cinematic lead-in, just sound. It feels intentional. Like she wanted to catch you mid-thought.

This is Things About The World That Burden Me, a debut that arrived without a preamble. Seven songs from a DMV artist who has spent years shaping other people’s music and has chosen, finally, to sign her own name to the work. It’s out Thursday.

She recorded most of it in small rooms. Hotel setups with thin walls. Rental studios where the air conditioning clicks on in the middle of takes. That’s in the music a closeness, a lack of polish that isn’t sloppy, just human. When she sings on 'Distractions,' there’s a moment where her breath catches in the mic before the hook hits. It’s not edited out. It shouldn’t be.

'Distractions' is a restless track. The beat keeps moving forward, even when her vocal pulls back. The lyrics are plainspoken: people talking over each other, the feeling of being present but unseen. She doesn’t frame it as a crisis. She just gives it a name.

Not all of the record sits in that pressure. 'Warm pulls the air open. A single guitar line, low and steady, gives her space to sing almost in a whisper. She doesn’t lean on melisma or runs; she just stays with the note until it feels like it belongs there. Listening to it feels like finding a quiet corner in a crowded room not silence, but relief.

The EP takes its name seriously. Things About The World That Burden Me could have been another 'state of the world' record, vague and heavy-handed. It isn’t. Danni moves through the specific: doomscrolling until morning, keeping a phone in hand at every meal, a conversation with someone she loves where neither of them are really listening. These moments thread through the songs without being labeled as themes. She doesn’t tell you what to feel about them. She just places you in them.

Danni grew up in church choirs. You can hear it in how she controls her tone not the showmanship of gospel solos, but the discipline of someone who learned how to fill a room without shouting. Before this, she spent years as a background vocalist, singing behind names bigger than hers. She also wrote for other artists, including a track that climbed the Billboard charts. Those experiences sit under the surface here.

Take 'Insatiable.' It starts spare: a single kick, a soft synth pad. As the song goes on, layers stack faint harmonies, a low bass line but nothing ever bursts. By the end, you realize you’re in the middle of a build that never tips over. That restraint makes it hit harder than any drop would have.

'DND,' the track that caught fifteen million views on Instagram, appears here almost unchanged. It’s easy to see why people shared it a simple hook, a sentiment that anyone who’s ever wanted to disappear can grab onto. In the context of the EP, though, it lands differently. Surrounded by songs about constant noise, it feels less like a slogan and more like self-preservation.

The closer, 'Go Home Roger,' breaks the tension with humour. The title leans to a ‘90s sitcom line, and the track itself is playful bright chords, side comments in the background. After six songs of weight, it’s a smirk in the middle of a long day. It’s also a reminder: even in the thick of what she calls “the burdens,” there’s space for lightness.

When you reach the end, there’s no grand finale. No big declaration of what this all means. Just the last note fading.

This isn’t her arriving with a manifesto or a perfectly packaged image. She’s putting forward a record that sounds like it was made by someone who’s been paying attention to herself, to what’s around her, to the parts of life that are easy to miss until they wear you down. It’s a debut that doesn’t ask for belief. It simply exists.