CLEAN brings you new music on the daily. We make sure you stay up to date with the latest releases you shouldn’t miss out on. However, every now and then, we like to take a little throwback. Whether it’s a song we believe you may have missed or a true blast from the past that once dominated the charts, these moments are here to remind us what today’s music is built on. We celebrate the hits of today — and revisit yesterday’s best tunes, like the one below.
Today the streets in the Netherlands are dressed in orange everywhere you look. It’s King’s Day — a traditional celebration where we all come together, head outside, and party in the streets to celebrate the birthday of the Dutch King. Seeing orange so dominant all around us inspired today’s throwback. We’re talking about none other than the duo Emotional Oranges.
The California-based duo is made up of Azad Right and Vali Porter. Both had their own perfect start within the music industry. Azad worked as an audio engineer for Drake, while Vali was a vocal coach for none other than Adele. No wonder their powers combined brings us music that always hits.
Seven years ago, they released their debut EP The Juice: Vol. 1. Those eight songs were on non-stop rotation everywhere we went. No one around us was safe from Emotional Oranges. Their music is infectious in the best way possible. To us, it always felt like a blend of everything we loved at the time - think Drake meets Tinashe, with a touch of indie music thrown in. There are no skips on this EP, and each track sounds different to the other while still feeling cohesive as a full project.
Our favorite track on the EP has remained the same to this day. ‘Built That Way’ is a funky R&B song with a timeless production. The switch between vocals works perfect and has the track feeling balanced in all the right places. Even though it’s an up-tempo offering, for some reason we resonated with it at the time thanks to the lyrics. At the time we related to the chorus due to a period of dating coming to an end, even though none of us dared to say it out loud. Whether or not that’s the intended meaning behind the song, it’s exactly why we’ll always love this song.
Emotional Oranges released their full-length debut album Orenjii in May last year. They’re currently taking a well-deserved break but secretly, we’re hoping they’re in the studio working on new music for summer 2026.