Kaheru Sings Through a Cold and Plays a Recording Made About Five Years Ago

INDEPENDENT — Kaheru, an independent streamer, held a karaoke stream on Saturday while recovering from a cold, and used the night to play back a private cover she recorded roughly five years ago. She said the file sounded so different from her voice now that she had to ask who was singing.

She opened by explaining that she had planned to rest her voice before a collab the next day, in which she and another streamer would read spooky stories submitted by viewers. She caught a cold instead, and said she felt better and wanted to “vibe” with a little singing. A cold had left her voice deeper than usual, she said, so she tried lower-key songs and promised not to attempt anything loud.

“What happened to chill, bro? This was supposed to be a chill song.” — Kaheru, after a run of sad songs

The set leaned toward ballads. After a song she called underrated, she described a lullaby-style number she used to listen to when falling asleep, then moved on to a piano arrangement and a stripped-down take on a vampire-themed song, a nod to her ghost-and-wings outfit. Midway through, she joked that the “chill” setlist was really a list of sad songs. When chat asked for a song from the game To the Moon, she sang it, then played the old recording and noted how quiet and young she sounded. She said she has many unreleased covers because she cannot afford to have them mixed, though one is in the works.

Not everything ran smoothly. Her webcam tracking dropped out repeatedly, and she stopped to unplug it. Near the end, after she turned off her reverb, her voice suddenly came through a different microphone. She joked about a “’90s gamer mic” and pleaded for patience as a new streamer.

She closed by thanking viewers, reminding them that the story submission form would stay open during the next day’s stream, and heading off to rest. In chat, viewers sent get-well wishes and welcomed a raid that arrived partway through.