19 APRIL 16-22, 2026 westword.com WESTWORD | CONTENTS | LETTERS | NIGHT+DAY | CULTURE | CAFE | MUSIC | FIND MORE MUSIC COVERAGE AT WESTWORD.COM/MUSIC Self Love HOME HAS RELEASED A DEBUT EP OF HEARTWARMING R&B AHEAD OF HER FOCOMX PERFORMANCE. BY CLEO MIRZA R&B singer-songwriter HOME’s path to a music career began with Brian McKnight’s song “Win.” As a young girl growing up in Denver, she learned the song at school and couldn’t wait to perform it for her mother, who was fl oored by her daughter’s natural vocal abilities. “I came home and sang it for my mom, and I guess she’d been having a bad day. She always tells this story, like, ‘I had the worst day ever!’ It just really touched her heart,” HOME remembers. “From there, I just grew into loving music. In second grade, I did my fi rst big solo at school, and I was like, ‘Oh, yeah, singing is what I want to do.’” Today, HOME’s soulful, uplifting melodies have established her as a mainstay in Denver’s R&B scene. In February, she released her debut EP, Letters From Home, and on Satur- day, April 25, she’ll take the stage at Equinox Brewing for Fort Collins’s annual FoCo MX music festival. We chatted with HOME to hear more about her lifelong musical journey, the process of making her fi rst project, and how songwriting allowed her to fully embrace all parts of herself. Once she decided she was interested in singing, HOME joined a choir. As she got older, she progressed to more ad- vanced choirs at the Denver School of the Arts, where she started experimenting with song arrangements. “Doing that is kind of what introduced me to wanting to make my own music,” she recalls. “I was like, ‘I really like this, and I want to take this on as a career.’ So then I went to college for that.” But HOME’s college expe- rience wasn’t exactly smooth. She wasn’t sold on higher education but it was a non- negotiable in her family, so she started out studying music at Metro State University. “I just went to MSU because they had a jazz program, so I was like, ‘Well, I can just study music and do my own thing while I’m getting this degree to make my family happy,” she admits. She left after a year to attend Santa Fe University of Art and Design. “I was there for a year, too,” she recalls. “I loved that school, and I would’ve stayed, but that school got shut down.” In the meantime, though, her year in New Mexico reignited her passion for music. “I met a lot of really good people there,” she says, “and I think that solidifi ed my con- fi dence in my artistry.” She decided to give college one last shot and auditioned for the University of Colorado Denver’s music business program, just days before the audition window closed. She was accepted and ultimately graduated with a degree in mu- sic business with an emphasis in recording and performing arts. “When I was there, I did make more connections. I defi nitely was think- ing, ‘Let’s get this degree and get out of here,’ but I did meet a lot of really good people that I still work with to this day,” says HOME. “It’s funny, too, because I remember a profes- sor saying, ‘The people that you’re sitting next to in this classroom are going to be the people that you go out into this world with, and make networking connections with, so really foster these relationships.’ I didn’t think about the weight of it all then, but we’re coming up on the sixth year since I graduated college, and I still have those connections.” They include producer and guitarist don. (aka Brandon Craven). The duo met in music theory class at CU Denver and began getting together for informal songwriting sessions, during which HOME fi ne-tuned her sound. They ultimately released her recent debut project – entirely produced by don. – as a collaborative EP. “Brandon and I started meeting during COVID, and that’s what birthed making all these songs, and giving legs to them, and ac- tually getting stuff out there,” she says. “We both enjoy the exploration of putting new things together, but also, he keeps me honest. If he thinks I can do something differently, or better, we’ll go back and forth. Sometimes we don’t always agree, but we always have a high respect for each other’s artistry. I really ap- preciate people who challenge my mind, and creatively, don. does that. We just click.” With don.’s help, she started bringing her original songs to life. She had been performing covers since 2017 under a different name, but stepped into her own as an artist when she landed on the stage name HOME. “I was thinking hard about what kind of artist I wanted to be known as, and how I wanted people to resonate with my music,” she explains. “That’s how I came up with the name HOME, because I want people to listen to my music and feel comfortable, like they’re talking to a good friend or family member, and getting those raw emotions that you don’t really express outside of the space where you feel comfortable.” HOME’s conversational lyrics create a safe haven for listeners to refl ect, in the same way some of her favorite artists have made her feel heard. “The thing I like to focus on when I’m writing is the lyrics, and making them almost discussional. I think Alicia Keys and Jhene Aiko do a really good job of that,” she says. “Especially Jhene, I swear she was talking to me. Like, this girl understands my struggles! So I defi nitely value that in the music I write, because I want it to feel like I’m having a conversation or telling a story.” Her creativity blossoms in quiet mo- ments of introspection, when she follows her organic stream of consciousness wher- ever it takes her. “I feel like people don’t sit in silence enough,” she says. “Sometimes I’ll go to the gym and not listen to music, or drive home without listening to music, and just be in my thoughts. Just letting my mind wander to see where it goes, and if it gets stuck on a thought, diving deeper into that thought. That is usually what births the ideas for my songs.” Letters From Home narrates the highs and lows of HOME’s current era of self- discovery. She intentionally released the project in February, in honor of Black His- tory Month and its association with love. “February is the month of love because of Valentine’s Day, and I think the theme of this EP is very closely tied to self-love and self-discovery. I know a lot of times people focus on romantic love that time of year, but I wanted to give a different perspective,” she says. “I’m in a phase of loving myself and wanting more for myself, and standing stronger and more clearly on my boundar- ies. That has been a strong inspiration as of late. In this current continued on page 20 HOME is an R&B singer-songwriter from Denver. HOME sang in traveling choirs from age eight through her time at the Denver School of the Arts. MUSIC DALMA DIBUZ DALMA DIBUZ
