Kareen Lomax wrote most of ijan in 2021 and sat on it for five years. Her debut EP Hard Feelings had just landed and “Looking For Me,” the platinum-certified UK Top 5 record she wrote and featured on with Diplo and Paul Woolford, had introduced her voice to a much wider audience.
ijan, released 6th February 2026, is the one that introduces her soul.
The closing track “Somewhere In The World” is about letting someone go gracefully, from a woman who already knows what it feels like when people don’t come back.
Produced by Daoud, it opens on soft piano keys alone, the kind of opening that asks you to stop whatever you’re doing.
The percussion and violin join in later, and the resulting sound is vintage neo-soul, warm and introspective.
Her vocal tone, androgynous and instinctively soulful, carries the whole thing. Backing vocals settle beneath her, grounding the emotion and pulling you deeper into it.
The writing is personal in the way only real loss can make it. She’s buried her sister. Her father is in Tennessee. Her mother needs keeping.
And through all of that, she still finds room to wish someone she loves well on their way out. Just let me know you’re somewhere in the world.
That’s not a small thing to write. That’s someone who has already done the harder work of letting go and is asking only for the quiet reassurance that the person is still breathing somewhere. Moving on with grace rather than bitterness.
Lomax was still grooming dogs in Atlanta when Diplo found her. She has since written for Leon Bridges, Maroon 5, Syd and Kavinsky, and received the Abe Olman Scholarship from the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 2022. The credits tell one story. “Somewhere In The World” tells another.
