The French musician and producer, author of the breathtaking “choke enough”, one of the best albums of 2025, organized a Twitch live session on Sunday, February 22 to discuss the genesis of the eponymous track with her friend and collaborator Casey MQ. Between anecdotes and production secrets, here is what stood out.
“I’m so happy to do this, friends, it’s something I’ve wanted to do for years,” Oklou says with a hoarse but bright smile. Up to 800 viewers will be on the Okloutv Twitch channel, eager to discover the contents of this “CHOKE ENOUGH BTS – S01EP01.” In an intimate setting – Marylou Mayniel, her legal name, even takes a call from her mother mid-stream – the Poitevin musician began her Twitch session on Sunday, February 22 at 6 p.m. to recount the genesis of the track choke enough.
The French singer‑songwriter and producer has been making waves since the release of her album choke enough in February 2025. It ranked second on Les Inrockuptibles’ list of the 100 albums of 2025. On choke enough, Oklou fuses electronic-synth pop with a sharp sense of melody and overlapping sequences, sometimes evoking baroque music. The musician has ignited passions across the Channel and across the Atlantic (she will perform at Coachella in April and earned a Pitchfork cover story), suggesting she enjoys more acclaim abroad than in her homeland of France. In any case, she chose Paris to end her 2025 tour with a memorable show at the Salle Pleyel, long sold out for months.
All-star Casting
In 2025, Oklou also became a mother, and won the Joséphine Prize in September. Between the postpartum period and the media whirlwind that followed the release of choke enough, she recounted Sunday on Twitch that she felt as if she had missed something, of “that thing I really want to tell you about.” This Twitch live she views as a way to “reclaim control” over the story people tell about her and choke enough. On the program, the titular track, track number 6 on the prodigy of an album.
Technically assisted by Lucien Krampf, a producer‑DJ‑sound engineer, Oklou invites her friend Casey MQ, live from Los Angeles. The Canadian producer, composer and singer contributed to almost all the tracks on choke enough. Known for experimental electro-pop with a strong melodic sensibility, he is often associated with the hyperpop aesthetic of the British label PC Music, which also houses producer Danny L Harle. These names are of course credited on choke enough.
21GB
The first piece of information dropped by the musician is that the choke enough file is extremely heavy. It weighs 21GB. The French hyperpop star flicks through on her screen a dozen versions of “choke enough”, all arranged differently. “This is the track I’ve spent the most time on… Several years, to be honest.” The time markers are laid out: the first studio session took place around New Year’s 2021–2022 for a wrap in December 2024.
Oklou then guides us through the creation process of the sixth track on choke enough and begins by isolating the famous, warm, rounded synth line, beautifully sequenced in arpeggios and instantly recognizable. The roughly 500 viewers excite from the first notes and flood the Twitch chat. We learn that Marylou Mayniel first used this synth in 2021 on Bladee and Mechatok’s remix, Rainbow (make it double Oklou mix). And this same synth bed is used on the memorable take me by the hand where… Bladee is invited. Recycling magic.
Glory to Improvisation
When listening to the production of choke enough, it can be hard to intuitively imagine that improvisation plays a central role in Oklou’s trackmaking. Yet with this profusion of sounds so perfectly interwoven, a long period of experimentation seems natural. The most devoted fans, who know the artists in her orbit such as Malibu, Vickie Chérie, guitarist Detente, the musician Jazz Lambaux, or the bassist Sarah-Louise Barbett, all recently gathered at the Station-Gare des Mines to witness the importance of experimentation and the improvised sections in the French musician’s work.
“We did so many vocal takes for this track,” recalls Casey MQ. “You had recorded that topline, the lyrics weren’t written… We really loved the sound of that very first take.” Quick as a flash, Oklou re-performs the beginning of choke enough, which many in the live audience know by heart. “All the initial bits you hear… this is the very first impro I did!” she explains. What follows is an evocative, almost philosophical discussion between Casey MQ and Oklou about the importance of improvised parts, sung in gibberish that could be translated, in good French, as “yogurt.” Yogurt is a vocal technique that involves singing with sounds, onomatopoeia, and syllables that imply real words.
Beyond the Lyrics
“Is there a hidden meaning in there?” asks the Canadian musician. After a brief Socratic exercise, Oklou arrives at this conclusion: “I say nonsense and then we find words. Yogurt carries a great significance.” The musician is clearly passionate about the topic. “In the first topline, we thought we heard the word ‘choke’…,” a term that eventually made it into the track’s title and then the album’s title, and that even appears in viscus, one of the latest singles from choke enough (Deluxe) featuring FKA Twigs. But the two friends and artistic partners go further. Oklou explains that “sometimes, when we try to replace the yogurt, it doesn’t work,” before Casey MQ pushes the boundaries of linguistics: “the syllables and the sounds associated carry meaning beyond the written words,” he concludes.
But how were the lyrics for the song “choke enough” actually written? Oklou describes it as a “very cinematic experience”: she’s in Los Angeles with Casey MQ working on the album. One evening, she takes the wheel of a rental Subaru and drives through Downtown LA, and, between two buildings, she spots “the biggest full moon I’ve ever seen.” The French artist parks to take a photo in a dim corner of the neighborhood, often shortened to DTLA.
“It was while listening to the track in the car that I found the inspiration for its lyrics… a very Inception-like mise en abyme,” admits the musician, who recalls a car ride with her father when she was younger. Seeing the moon, he, who hadn’t spoken for hours, would mutter aloud, “By what means can such a large object hang in the night?”
A Second Episode in the Works
During these two and a half hours of the Twitch live, Oklou introduced her fans to her universe in a nearly home-like, improvised manner. On several occasions, the French singer-songwriter and producer mentioned “lots of unreleased songs” for choke enough that she would like to present during a Twitch listening session. At the end of her live, she declares her love for Daft Punk’s Discovery, another French act with worldwide fame.
“Next episode Sunday same time,” she writes in an Instagram Story this Wednesday, February 25, sharing the recap of her Twitch live, edited by the video service of Inrockuptibles. Count us in!
