clipse x ADÉLA

what the fuck do those two artists have with each other? GREAT question. and the answer, of course, is that they have us, as people in a room with speakers and hearts that beats at different tempos for different reasons. frankly, i'm SICK to death of the tyranny of the number, the cruel math of a ten-point scale that tries to convince us that an artist's heart and soul is something that can be quantified.

the agony of strange fruit: "true believer" by hayley williams

the south laid its claim to me early. it seeped into my bedrock, that humid breath, the slow drawl of time over onslow county marsh grass or the particular scent of pluff mud rising with the tide near charleston. it’s a country within me, mapped by the weight of history that sits heavy as august humidity. that landscape isn't just geography; it’s the architecture of my being, perhaps best identified by my uncontrollable reflex to hold doors for meemaws and youngins.

new york holds me now, has held me for seven years. it’s a fierce, glittering embrace, a city that has demanded my whole self and rewarded me with its electric pulse. i am happy here, genuinely. found a kind of belonging in the relentless forward motion, the anonymity that can feel like freedom. yet, sometimes, standing on a crowded platform or watching the late-night lights blur from a sixth story window, a different current runs beneath brooklyn’s hum. it’s a low thrum, a memory of crickets singing in the heavy dark, the far-off cry of a train whistle cutting through pines. a longing not for the place as it is, perhaps, but for the place as it was, or as i remember it shaping me.

that’s the cruel trick, isn’t it? the homesickness for a country that no longer exists. if i boarded a plane tomorrow, touched down in that lowcountry heat, i know the coordinates wouldn’t align. the streets might be the same, the rivers might flow towards the same sea, but something’s just… off. the place of my forging is gone, replaced by something familiar yet irrevocably altered, or maybe it’s me who’s been remade by distance and concrete. what is a homeland but a story we keep telling ourselves, one that gets rewritten with every mile we put between us and its source? has my mourning influenced my memory? was it always as kind as i remember? 

that’s where hayley williams finds me. she’s singing from that same liminal space, isn’t she? mourning a version of home, a version of self, that’s slipped into the realm of memory. there’s a recognition in her voice, a weariness that isn’t defeat but a clear-eyed acknowledgment of the loss. i see it in her as i see it in myself. we’re sifting through ashes, looking for a spark that can’t be reignited. it’s not anger, not quite despair. 
it’s the profound, echoing grief for what’s been irrevocably changed – the landscape, the history, the ease with which people would open their hearts to their neighbors. i hear my own displacement in her ache, the shared understanding that the place we yearn for lives now only in the rearview. we’re both singing the blues for a ghost town built inside us, knowing the real one is lost, buried under the weight of time and our own necessary leaving.

the rise of a southern princess: doechii's alligator bites never heal

two roads diverge in a musical wood: should an artist make a break for true self-expression and risk alienating their fanbase? or have they locked themselves in a prison of their own making?

monthly mix: august 2024

bushwick smoke shops are ARMY too?

the sun is setting.... it's time to say goodbye and come inside.... lament the end of summer... please mourn with me as i revisit my august playlist.

the new world tour: an ode to house parties

house parties in your twenties are a peculiar kind of magic. they’re gloriously chaotic, unsanctioned celebrations, steered only by the whims of whoever's on aux. these parties are less about structure and more about the feeling of something alive and uncontainable, a dance floor liberated from the confines of genre or expectation. 

but one truth endures: no house party is complete without childish gambino.

i can have some magdalena bay, as a treat

have you ever indulged in a charcuterie board in the sanctuary of your own home?

does somos sur include american southerners? for my sake, i hope so

when i was in chile a bit ago, my local contacts exercised some of the finest hospitality i’ve ever experienced and did me the massive favor of introducing me to a new artist. it generally takes me a bit to fall in love with someone new.

but.