The Hip Hop African

image provided by SlikourOnLife

PdotO’s Dear God is an emotional plea against the world and all of its pressures. PdotO uses this song to express his grievances against his community touching on topics such as rape, alcoholism, and xenophobia. The song brilliantly shows the realities of being a socially conscious emcee in South Africa and in the world, dealing with hate and criticism constantly while also dealing with the issues plaguing your community and your heart. The song’s slow beat gives PdotO the chance to enunciate every syllable and word. Using only piano and drums as the background he bares his soul through every word, emphasizing each phrase.

He says, “Crooked world we live / Where niggas raping babies too / I think it’s high time we faced the truth / Maybe we lost as fuck, maybe we can’t escape”.  He raps about how lost we are as a society and how bad things have gotten. It’s very dark and almost hopeless. He brings his brother into the mix as well, speaking about how his alcoholism and the dark cloud it placed over their relationship even though he still loves him. He raps about South Africans and xenophobia saying, “Xenophobia killing your people, y’all niggas gone / Mentally enslaved, you hate your skin, you hate yourself”. Our Black is so beautiful but the world constantly wants to tell us it’s not and he speaks on this by comparing it to being mentally enslaved; it’s like a cycle that continues because of generations of trauma and he writes about this beautifully. 

The main refrain is “Dear God / Won’t you save me from myself? / Won’t you save me from myself?” I think he is not only trying to say that God should save him from himself, but he is also saying that God should save us from ourselves as a society. We’re hurting each other and hurting ourselves as well in the process. This song is not at all a feel good, empowerment song. You can feel PdotO exhaustion through the song. He’s tired of the world, tired of the critics, and tired of his efforts to confront all of it at once.

The music video was very simple and it made sense that it was that way. PdotO was the only one in it and it was shot in black and white. It was mainly a medium close up and that’s all it needed to be. There were no distractions from what he was saying. It was purely the emcee and all he had to say so his message wouldn’t get muddled. It matched the dark tone of the song perfectly and its simplicity brought depth to what he was saying. 

Overall this song was a 10 for me. I believe PDot O truly gave listeners something to think about and maybe hurt about too.