Live Review: PREMIERE: ARIG gets tragically honest with 'Mama Said'
It's a song born in angst and a longing for a peaceful upbringing, but 'Mama Said' emerges as an emotional and beautifully tragic moment for ARIG.
"Dichotomy. Dichotomy is the strange place between heaven and the one that birthed me." Those are the haunting and chilling words that ARIG utters in a devastating deadpan in between the first chorus and the second verse. It echoes a heartbreaking honesty that the Eritrean artist imbues throughout the entirety of her new single, 'Mama Said'.
As eerie vocalisations welcome us into 'Mama Said', we're greeted with the immediately confronting lines, "When I'm on the outside, I fight for my life and my will and my mind." Here stands a woman scorned but not stopped, down but not out. As the minimalist and crisp beats circle around, ARIG's voice gradually evolves from a silky whimper to a solid and powerful roar in the chorus.
"Mama said 'run!'" anchors the chorus in this anti-love letter to her mother. Of the song, ARIG said, "I spent a lot of nights getting drunk with the beat on repeat until sun up trying to figure out how to get out the angst and pain that I was feeling towards my Mum. But, when I let go of trying to get it right and I just got on the mic it all just came out."
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The sparse beat gives ARIG's vocals enough room to breathe and thrive on their own, from the soaring breaks to the strong, dominant chorus. Her pain is at the forefront of every word she sings, not holding back in conveying her emotion through her lyrics and her singing. With an almost-trap influenced beat towards the end, ARIG uses her trauma to deliver a truly remarkable song in 'Mama Said', but mixes it in with contemporary sounds that highlight how much potential she's sitting on.
It's a song born in angst and a longing for a peaceful upbringing, but 'Mama Said' emerges as an emotional and beautifully tragic moment for ARIG. It's a song about how her mother steered her in the right direction by showing her everything she didn't want to be. It's an honesty that might be too real for us to comprehend, but an honesty that we, and more importantly ARIG, needed. Taken from a forthcoming debut EP named Attrition, this is only the start for ARIG, and we cannot wait to hear more.
Words by JACKSON LANGFORD
Image: Supplied
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