He wrote, "It goes slack when I watch," and, as I read that line, I got that tingle in the small of my back--the one that I get when something grabs my bones and shakes them until the vibrations hit my soul. It's a rare feeling but one that is often triggered by song.
In that instant during our instant messenger conversation, Ihsen Da Sole went from talented musician and singer, and all-around cool guy, to intelligent lyricist--my favorite kind of fenan.
I had heard his track, "Beef," before, and it sounded good. Its melodies flowed and fit well into the scheme of my music collection. I liked it, and then I left it alone.
Today, "Beef" took on a new life. Ihsen pulled out the words for me, separating them from the beat and the background and even from the title. And standing alone, fending for themselves against a blank canvas in an instant messenger window, they were simultaneously stark and soulfull.
I don't think Ihsen realized what reading those words, that line--"it goes slack when I watch"--was doing to me...at least not until I told him, "That's it! I have to write about you tonight."
In "Beef," Ihsen tells you about his struggle with time, a war that is so ordinary that an unattentive audience may just nod and sing along robotically. I urge you to pay attention; to stand on the battle field in the aftermath, when it is silent and still. There, you will find the most basic, commonsense, beautiful, complex description of a mundane moment that everyone experiences but forcibly ignores. And the words smack you in the face and you will be forced to face them. Then, you will hear that Ihsen is singing for you too.
These are the gems of music--the hidden trinkets that are discovered with each pump up of the volume, allowing for deeper excavation. These make music exciting to me. To me, an intelligent lyricist is someone who rhymes an experience that you know but have never before put into organized words. And that sensation transforms a song into a life soundtrack. I know now that I will think of "it goes slack when I watch" while I'm watching life tic-tock away on the clock on my work computer.
Ihsen's music is full of other such diamonds, emeralds, rubies, and black onyxes that surely emerge from his daily life: but nevermind that he produces Hip Hop shows from beginning to end to showcase the talents of Afrock; nevermind that he brings sophistication and maturity to the game with a classy style and a smooth sound that can still be tough when it needs to be; nevermind that he represents the soul of Tunisia with every spit and verse that he delivers in English; nevermind that he favors soul music in this phase of his life; nevermind that he is one of the hardest-working men in his hood and he's only 25; nevermind that he eats salty fish with his fellow countrymen on il 3eed; nevermind all of those details that have brought this lyricist to the place he exists in today--to the talent that he has evolved into in this era of his life; nevermind that he is looking at a future that will certainly be bright but that is a mystery right now.
Nevermind all of those things--because you will realize you know it all when you hear him sing it to you in that one gem verse.
***You may still be fighting your war with time, ya Ihsen, but those battles are creating your creativity, and
you are making some timeless music, my friend. Masha'Allah.***
