Happy New Year to all! As we move through January, most of us are feeling this Venus retrograde mixed with this Mercury retrograde. Pardon my language but shit is feeling real. If you can’t tell, this album review is for those needing some more affirmations in their life. Felukah, a Neo-soul Egyptian rapper taking the diaspora by a storm. While her album Citadel reached a more progressive, activist audience, her next album Dream 23 felt like a journey through Felukah’s life. It’s about healing and moving through time and space; it’s about moving through time and space and being okay with it. Every song is written as if it isn’t even for the audience. It feels like the artist is just taking us on the ride with her as she figures life out.
Heliocentrism; the astronomical model in which the planets revolve around the Sun at the center of the Universe. I like to think that once you have centered yourself and accept your place in the universe, you can experience true freedom as you accept your reality. Recently, I had to center myself before I went back to school this semester considering the last one curb stomped me out. When you truly center yourself, the world opens up as you see the beauty in everything around you. Felukah presents this song after Air where her theme is openness. Ironically, the first song felt like a breath of fresh air as we began traveling through her space. Heliocentric is about freedom. Like the ocean. Like the Air that takes up space around us. Freedom to feel your center and to love and be loved as if you’re the Sun being revolved around.
The pandemic is such a new and weird reality that it feels like this is an apocalypse and there is no way out. As many of my fellow young adults go back to school fearing for our life, it seems like no one cares about our lives. As black individuals, our existence is constantly policed and belittled. The pandemic has shown black people everywhere how little our lives matter to those above us and it feels like the apocalypse without the zombies. With this song, Felukah is all of us speaking to our loved ones. Please come find me, while the world is falling apart.
Parents turn away please. This song is literally the Gen Z mantra anthem. Felukah is giving you all the affirmations you need through this song right here. I want y’all to play this after a night out with your friends. At the moment where you are unwinding and start to review your night. “You gon’ let them know, You gon’ teach them how to flow, Check that mental, bet it’s gold, You’re open.” Even if it’s not true, we gotta fake it til we make it. Space doesn’t stop. The planets never stop moving. We never stop moving. Regardless of what your journey is, you made it through. Let them know, and let it flow. Keep saying it until you do it.