This is a particularly poignant moment in the song for me.

I’m sure a lot of us today can remember being kids and being excited to grow up and live our dreams.
We thought it’d be so simple, so free, so fulfilling, and for some of us it is, but for all of us, it currently looks like 2020, 2021, and whatever else may come in this same vein.

There’s a sadness and a disappointment there that I think a lot of us are still reckoning with.

On a philosophical note, I have a theory that life is somewhat of a simulation, or “school” of sorts, in which our purpose here is to accrue as much experience as we can within the spectrum of emotion and vibration.

I imagine that when we sleep and dream, it serves as a nightly check-in on where we stand at the time on that spectrum, and when we die, we’re released into a new, dream-like experience where rather than being confined to one single “heaven” or “hell”, we’re free to explore our untethered imaginations based on all that we gathered through our time on Earth.

…That don’t really got much to do with the lines here but that’s kinda why I called life a “dream”…

My favorite bar in this is “we been tryna make a wave, since they want our hands up”… that one speaks for itself.

“Homie finally caught a break, he can’t pick the bag up” is a bit more ambiguous.
When I wrote it I was thinking of somebody who really needs the opportunity but can’t get to a job interview or make it to work on time because of protests / riots in the streets.

It could also be in reference to the deceased victim of police brutality who died right at the cusp of a big break… The point is, it’s all a circle of tragedy.

When I wrote this song I used a freewriting technique I learned from my partner at the time. They told me to start writing, don’t stop, and don’t overthink it, and when I come to a line I can’t get past, just repeat it until the next one comes. That’s what I did here and it worked out perfectly.

The repetition really helped to convey the hammering feeling of everything that’s been happening this last couple years, as well as the anxiety it can trigger in a lot of younger folks who never had to deal with such bizarre, urgent and harsh global events in our lifetime.

There’s also a slight distortion on my voice every time I shout this line that I used to add an abrasive texture to it. I wanted it to be felt. Shit is really crazy out there.

(Taking it a step further, that distortion fades when I transition from shouting the line in a panicked tone to singing it in a more emotional tone…)

Again, not my first hand experience but for the purpose of this record I’m once again tapping into the perspective of someone who has to go to extremes to make ends meet and protect themselves and what they have.

The idea was to shine a light on the needs of that person and the difficulties they may face in meeting them. The goal is to “get my shit together”, but “it’s hard to find a way”, SO……

Ever since the start of 2020 it really has felt like the whole world is on fire. Some of the most unbelievable stories have made the news, a lot of others haven’t. Point is, it’s all happening and hardly any of us can believe it.

I know I’m not the only one who asks this question sometimes…

Made the slight connection here of the “water” running dry and that = no more smooth “sailing”.

In terms of the actual point of it though, I wanted to give simple, understandable context to some of the more controversial, yet lucrative hustles these days.

When I wrote this song I was living on the actual edge of St. Lucy (Barbados), far away from society. I’m a total recluse and I don’t mix well into conventional spaces.

The further I am from everything going on, or at least the more elusive I’m able to be within it, the more comfortable I tend to be.

Kind of a jaded expression here of the cycle we often witness in society:

An injustice occurs on some level of severity, there’s an outraged reaction, rinse & repeat.