After a mixtape and two popular EPs, Beyoncé's protégés have finally released their first official album. Their debut record The Kids Are Alright — out now — is an ethereal collection of joyful pop and R&B melodies and uplifting lyrics, brought to life by the sisters' rich, powerful harmonies.
To accompany the much-anticipated release, each week the duo is rolling out a video taking their fans behind their creative process. In the first clip, the sisters reveal the inspirations behind three of the songs from the album, which all happen to be exactly the kind of empowerment anthem young women need right now.
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In the video, Chloe and Halle begin by talking about "Grown," a song that might be familiar to fans of the Freeform show Grownish, which the sisters star in opposite Yara Shahidi. The Atlanta natives reveal that showrunner Kenya Barris asked them to create a theme song for the series. The writing process only took 30 minutes, after the sisters say they listened to the theme songs of some of their favorite shows like The Proud Family, That's So Raven, Drake & Josh, and Friends for inspiration.
"It worked out so perfectly, because as we were writing these lyrics for the purpose of the show, it was near and dear to our hearts — we were writing it to ourselves in a way," Chloe told Refinery29. "As we're growing into young women, we feel like we're grown, but then not really, because we realize we don't really know anything. But you know, we're just letting the world know we're grown, we're here, we got this."
Halle added, "We love how people of all ages sing this song and are like 'Oh, it takes me back to that moment when I was that age and I was about to be grown. We'll never get this moment back, so it's just soaking it all in and writing about it."
The track appears on their 18-song album, which also includes the title track "The Kids Are Alright." Halle said this particular song was "the birth of the idea of the whole album...just knowing as a youth you are powerful. With everything going on in the world today, sometimes you feel under pressure. This was just that confirmation and reminder to ourselves that we're gonna be okay no matter what happens, no matter what is going on in the world. We're gonna be just fine."
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For their track "Warrior," which also appeared on the A Wrinkle In Time soundtrack and features the chorus "Yes, I am a warrior" with the sisters' soaring vocals, Chloe and Halle took their inspiration from the movie's trailer, which frequently featured the word "warrior."
"We were like, let's just take this word and go with it. So we started writing from there," says Halle.
Chloe commends her sister for working hard on their album while also completing her senior year of high school, and says that drive only made made creating this song for A Wrinkle In Time more meaningful. "We wanted the track to feel very powerful," she says, "because we felt like Meg, the lead character in the movie, is a beautiful young woman who's finding the power within her."
Watch the full video below. The Kids Are Alright is out now. And don't miss Chloe x Halle on the March 30 episode of The Mention at youtube.com/refinery29!