First Of All...

A 4 chord minimal chime is no stranger in Hip Hop. However, in ‘Give Thanks’, Yusef Slim has managed to produce something perfectly simple and by narrating it with his resigned and innocent flow, creates yet another empathy inducing banger. He sends each release out into a sea of insincere accounts of artistic angst, drug use and love abuse - and always manages to strike a chord of empathy within me.

‘Give Thanks’ chronicles Yusef’s desire to be acknowledged in all fields of his life, the self-produced beat floats sedately underneath a lyric that is fighting a deep battle with Borderline Personality Disorder, Yusef states -

“Before I start I give thanks to the most high, keep my head above water in the low tide / and I stay making music it’s a slow grind, in the night it’s like living with a ghost I / can’t believe I still be going I don’t know why, at this point it’s like compulsion I be so tired”

Being able to express yourself from beneath the suffocating blanket of necessary medication is an admirable feat. One which this artists genuinely achieves with everything he brings out, but this particular track manages to really portray his hanging onto the one shaft of light coming through the smallest crack in his universe.

With his second E.P on the horizon later this year, this unassuming artist will soon be impossible for you to ignore, and he won’t have to shout.