By Takudzwa Hillary Chiwanza
It is often a seemingly insurmountable and arduous task for artists to be as vulnerable as it can get in telling the truth of their life stories. Yet this is where artists find a refuge of some sort as listeners relate to the universality of life’s struggles as painted by the artist.
Permeated with the soft timbre of guitar-influenced sounds gesturing at the vast possibilities of healing, Swazy sips from her fountain of experience while she comfortably, and in a heartfelt manner, raps her life out.
The meditative and contemplative new song Numb My Pain by Swazy (ably anchored by Cottage 47) is a rallying cry for the scattered hopes of a generation — a clear-eyed rejection of stunted mental health while she musters all her willpower for the purposes of vulnerability and strength that ultimately yield into healing.
She shares “her experience of being bullied and isolated in high school, specifically in basketball”, and her lyrics paint the story vividly.
Numb My Pain is a song inundated with a broken heart, but one that still poetically yearns and calls out for true emancipatory love and solidarity; a love that does not judge but one that accepts every human being for who they are, with all their beauty and flaws.
Swazy steps out of a certain comfort zone in this no-holds-barred outpouring of vulnerability, strength, healing, and love — she resists the traps of ruefully ruminating what she went through by looking deep in her soul and summoning the courage to numb her pain, while looking for permanent respite.
With a flow that is delivered with soothing ease, Swazy assembles a plethora of dissociated but swelling thoughts into complex emotions conveyed in well-written lines and rhyme schemes.
Numb My Pain is an impressive song for recalcitrant souls recovering from bouts of pain.
The major take-away is not to be your biggest enemy — the use of haunting space and echo with that soft guitar shows how Swazy gives the listener time for self-reflection.
She exudes her intelligent reverence for the studio as a living thing. While playing her role in disseminating powerful messages in relation to a pervasive affliction in vogue: mental health.
You can listen to Numb My Pain by Swazy via this link and share with us your thoughts.
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