Album Review: Leodale – My Folks Forgot I Was Gonna Grow Up

TAWANDA CHARI 

There comes a time in every child’s life when the walls of home can no longer contain the lessons they must learn. That bittersweet moment when love meets letting go. When parents, knowingly or not, must release their grip and allow the wings they’ve nurtured to spread.

Leodale’s My Folks Forgot I Was Gonna Grow Up captures that precise moment. The hesitation before the leap, the pain of distance, and the beauty of independence. It’s a story about becoming. About outgrowing safety. About realizing that even the people who raised you sometimes forget that you’re meant to leave.

“I can’t learn the world through the windows” – Kuda Rice

The album opens with this haunting reflection from Kuda Rice. A line that lingers like a truth too often ignored. It anchors the project’s central theme: you can’t grow by watching life from the safety of the inside.

That single line inspired this entire review. Because even without children of my own, I recognized its weight, that uncomfortable reminder that the role of a parent isn’t just to love or protect, but to prepare.

Parents raise children, yes, but their ultimate task is to raise adults. And in between those years of nurturing, somewhere between scraped knees and graduation photos, they sometimes forget that growth means distance. That the child they held will one day have to walk and sometimes fall alone.

Of nests, wings, and the fear of falling

Kuda Rice’s metaphor of the bird’s nest stretches across the album’s emotional terrain. The flight, both freedom and risk. On tracks like The Greatest, Hungriest Brother Alive, and Picking Cherries, Leodale translates that metaphor into self-affirmation. A declaration that he’s ready to soar, no matter who forgot to believe in his wings. The limit, after all, is the sky once you learn to fly.

Through that lens, the album’s title becomes more than a lament whispered by every dreamer who was overprotected into uncertainty. It’s the child saying, “You loved me so much you forgot I needed to stumble.”

The art of becoming

At its core, this album is Leodale’s meditation on separation. That quiet but necessary psychological distance between child and parent, student and teacher, creator and expectation.

He turns that fracture into poetry, finding melody in the ache of independence. What we hear across the album is realization: that safety and stagnation often wear the same face.

In Conversation with Leodale

When we reached out to Leodale, he was strikingly candid. Thoughtful, unguarded, and almost philosophical about his craft.

On what lies hidden in the lyrics, he said: “It’s not necessarily hidden, people just don’t know yet. I end up looking like a tough guy when really, I’m just a down to earth human being trying to figure out life like everyone else… My music is all me. It’s all intentional. I don’t want people to listen to my music, I prefer they experience it, because it is the life I live.”

When asked if he’d be satisfied if this were his last album, he admitted: “'As a musician, no – because I suffer from perfectionism… But as a human being, yes. This album shows me at my truest form. Few people can be that transparent, real, deliberate, and good at the same time.”

On what the album taught him, he reflected: “Inspiration is not forced… The sound of morning to your ears can birth ideas just by looking at what’s in front of you. Wherever I am, I never got there by chance — it’s the people whose worlds and my world revolves around. Hence the term ‘my folks.’”

That idea "my folks" reframes the album’s title entirely. It’s not just about family by blood, but about every soul orbiting your existence, shaping who you become.

Gratitude and grounding

Before wrapping up, Leodale shared heartfelt thanks: “To God for the gift of inspiration and open-mindedness. To everyone who worked with me – MacDonald Munyawiri and his team, the video directors Tamu Ngwaru and Kuda Rice, my colleagues abroad Phoenix Beats and Buddy Minnelli, Kingstone Zimunya for hosting the debut performance with Mcheno and More, and to the listeners still keeping the album on rotation.”

My Folks Forgot I Was Gonna Grow Up is a coming of age story. Leodale reminds us that growing up isn’t just a biological process it’s spiritual, emotional, and deeply human. It’s learning that to be your own person, you must sometimes outgrow even the hands that once held you up.

Album Rating: 7/10 

Listen to the album by Leodale here: 

https://open.spotify.com/album/2sWtHLtxpndcvZ5uCgVIxe?si=8-cwW40DRESTyzcnIHbLcg