Forgive me for giving a big build-up to the MAZZA, but there is a lot to uncover regarding slowthai! I like how there are different emotions and styles that work their way through his music. Maybe, in some respects, people expect male artists to be quite limited; like they are going to talk about certain things and that their emotional palette is quite limited. There is a richness to slowthai’s work that is intriguing and revealing. Going back to the interview from The Guardian, we discover more about the textures and emotions in slowthai’s music:
“This attitude might sound understated, but it’s not delivered that way and does not extend to Slowthai’s approach to his music: he’s always been highly ambitious about that. He believes in albums. “I’m a fan of David Bowie,” he says. “I like albums, I like narrative, I love films. The idea and the story that flows from start to finish, it’s always been important to me.” Plus, he knows what he wants to make: TYRON was meant to be his third album, but the times seemed right for it to come out now. Vengefulness and rebellion, introspection and self-blame. The full emotional gamut.
Often, young men are only allowed to express two emotions, I say: anger and horniness. “I don’t think that they’re not allowed to express other emotions, it’s that they allow our society to make them feel that way,” he says. “I’ve got so many boys [friends] that are just angry in general, at life. And they have a reputation, so they think they have to act a certain way. Out of all my friends, they know I’m the one that if they wanted to cry, I’m there. It’s OK to cry. It’s not a thing [that] you’ve got to be the hardest man in the UK and walk around with your chest pushed out”.
“The final track on TYRON, adhd, talks about how Slowthai can’t be alone. How he needs his friends. It features a phone call from him to a mate, just saying that he misses him. It’s Slowthai’s favourite track on the album. He played the guitar, sampled it, and once he heard the sound, he knew what he wanted to do.
“I always wanted to make songs that make people cry,” he says. “Not just that you made people feel good, but you’ve really hit the emotion, or made them relive a moment where they feel something. And with that song, I never used that tone before and everyone in the room just went into the same headspace I was in. It allowed me to get everything off my chest. And I was dragging myself through the dirt. It made me feel like I’m hitting what I want to say. I’m fully getting it out. I’m expressing it”.
