I LIE HERE BURIED WITH MY RINGS AND DRESSES is the long, loud title of the new album by Backxwash, winner of the Canadian Polaris Music Prize in 2020. A deserved award for the Zambian-born rapper and producer, because there are few artists around that fuse the foundations of hip-hop and (black) metal so urgently and razor-sharply. Initially, Backxwash – real name Ashanti Mutinta – did this through traditional sampling. I LIE HERE BURIED... is the product of more modern production techniques: its diverse influences are forged into a formidable sword that carves through all obstacles. But even the music isn't nearly as intense as her searing raps, which are now more at the forefront than ever.
Written by: Jasper Willems
Photos: Chachi Revah
'The purpose of pain is to get our attention that something is wrong, protect us from further damage and to request care.'The interlude of I LIE HERE BURIED WITH MY RINGS AND DRESSES serves as a warning shot, promising a merciless, grim listening experience.Yet Ashanti Mutinta continues to laugh on the other end of the phone line. “On my previous album (God Has Nothing To Do With It Leave Him Out Of It, ed.) I was still looking for a form of forgiveness... 'Maybe it will be okay',” she explains. She states that the album was her way of turning more outward, with an open mind towards the wider world. Backxwash samples some iconic rock elements on her latest album, including Ozzy Osbourne's intro to 'Black Sabbath' and John Bonham's recognizable sledgehammer blows in Led Zeppelin's 'When The Levee Breaks'. Mutinta uses samples for deeper reasons than just aesthetic considerations. For her, samples are in fact fragments of time that are reused to define the present or the future. This is closely related to her own background: before going to Canada to study computer technology, Mutinta grew up in Zambia in a Christian family; Christianity that had been blown over by the British colonial occupation of the country. It was only when she immersed herself in the local Tumbuka religion and other forms of African spirituality that she broke free from her strict upbringing. As with the sampling of older music, the "witchcraft" of these communities revolves around dialogue with ghosts and demons, signals that your ancestors continue to watch over you.
Backxwash consciously wanted to exclude feelings of hope in the personal hell called I LIE HERE BURIED WITH MY RINGS AND DRESSES. The first complete track, "WAIL OF THE BANSHEE," instantly transports the listener to "one of the low points of [her] life".
‘It takes me back to my little helium tank
I bought the shit and I laughed motion sickness from gas
I’m coughing blotchy almost drop my knees to the bath
Puking blood all the way from North Rhodesia and back and I should have left a note
‘Cause if life is what you make of it I’m going for the do or die approach’
“At such a moment you stop fighting,” Mutinta explains. “You know the end is in sight and you resign yourself to it. You will not find redemption on this record. It's torture, so to speak." On the album, Backxwash exposes her troubled past with narcotics: nowhere do we hear a glossing over of reality. We experience her pain, despair and anger in real time. On the cover, we see her face in inverted Kiss makeup with a grimace: as if the devil is being driven out of her. “The demon is a character that keeps coming back on the record: it's a manifestation of this accumulation of thoughts. In times when you feel at your lowest, that demon looks down on you. Those negative feelings tower over you. It feels like a nightmare, a feverish dream: one that never ends throughout the album.”
Ondanks al die inhoudelijke zwaarte laat Mutinta haar vreugde en enthousiasme rondom het maakproces het liefst de vrije loop: het Polaris Prize-winnende God Has Nothing To Do With It verdween van de grote streamingplatforms omdat niet alle samples werden goedgekeurd. Dit dwong Backxwash en haar creatieve samenzweerder Mechant Vaporwave (Chachi Revah) – die ook fungeert als haar manager en woordvoerder – om een harde creatieve lijn door te trekken. Het impulsiever uitbrengen van platen, losgekoppeld van de machinaties van de muziekindustrie, werd het devies. Het verklaart waarom er referenties naar recentere gebeurtenissen – bijvoorbeeld SOPHIE’s dood en Meghan Markle’s interview met Oprah – voorbij komen op I LIE HERE BURIED WITH MY RINGS AND DRESSES.
"I'm not a perfectionist"
“When I make music, I prefer to release it as soon as possible. I don't want to get tired of my own music. I personally like that strategy. I am not a perfectionist. Don't get me wrong, I think perfectionism can be cool, but natural elements are cool too. Sometimes it's good to have a little spice in the art you're putting out. It shouldn't all be too clean, that's my philosophy. And working according to those guidelines has helped me a lot.”
Door de aandacht die Backxwash kreeg na het winnen van de Polaris Prize, kon ze grillige gelijkgestemden benaderen om haar nieuwe materiaal vorm te geven. Die artistieke uitwisselingen verliepen vaak aangenaam halsoverkop. Co-producer Ada Rook (Black Dresses) bedacht de hook voor het indrukwekkende titelnummer – wat Rook tegelijkertijd de mogelijkheid bood haar talenten als blackmetalvocaliste nader te verkennen. Hoewel beide muzikanten los van elkaar hun teksten schreven, bleken beide helften perfect op elkaar te passen. “Toen ik dat hoorde wilde ik absoluut niets aan haar takes veranderen. Misschien pas ik het instrumentale gedeelte enigszins aan, maar de energie in haar stem was zó ontzettend goed.” Het nummer gaat volgens Backxwash over hoe ze als trans vrouw nooit meer terug kan keren naar Zambia en dus permanent verkeert binnen de diaspora. ‘Lost in addiction / Exiled from my sisters / The colonies and their vision / Robbing me of my diction.’
Mutinta finds great solace in the many collaborations on the record. The experimental trio clipping., one of her personal favorites, provided the beat for 'BLOOD IN THE WATER' and Sadie Dupuis (Sad13, Speedy Ortiz) can be heard on 'SONGS OF SINNERS'. Godspeed You! Black Emperor gave permission for a rare sample to provide a chilling layer to 'BURN TO ASHES'. “I never micromanage when it comes to collaborations,” Mutinta laughs. “Working on music with other artists is more than just an exchange of ideas for me. It's about sharing a personal bond or friendship. That is a connection that I would prefer not to change too much.”
Confrontation
The cheerful Mutinta speaks in amazement about the endless possibilities of virtual instruments. “Almost all the piano sounds on the record are completely digital,” she chuckles. “It's a little harder to replicate things like guitar solos with the software, but in general you can program anything. At times we wanted to use a sample, only to find out later that it sounded better if we continued our own mood and vibe.” Yet that early predilection for samples shines through at specific moments on I LIE HERE BURIED WITH MY RINGS AND DRESSES. For example, '666 IN LUXAXA', named after the Zambian capital, was largely created with a sample kit from the late SOPHIE. We hear the singing of Sangoma, traditional African healers who seek harmony between life and death. “The topic I bring up on that issue is colonization. The sample in the song has been a very logical choice: it comes from a group of people who honor their ancestors with a song.”
'IN THY HOLY NAME' actually uses an entire live set by MIDI noise artist Lauren Bosfield as an outro, which forms a gruesome symbiosis with the ruthless accent of Backxwash. “The concept of 'IN THY HOLY NAME' is one of my favorites. I intended to shape the track as a photograph that gradually burns and distorts. I start the song in time, but little by little my words get behind and in between the beat. Lauren's noise set fits so perfectly with how the song fits together. In the meantime I just keep on rapping until the image is so distorted that it is distorted beyond recognition. I had a lot of fun putting it all together.”
And yet you think: even after that spectacular last verse, Backxwash can still rap endlessly. It is more as if the music collapses under the weight of its words than the other way around. It seems symbolic of her working method and mentality as an artist, where confrontation against her oppressors – both internal and external – is not a choice, but a necessity. “I experimented a lot with this record, I also had a great time coming up with the beats. I feel I've had a breakthrough in my career because I don't follow the rules too much. I went about it the wrong way when I first started making beats because I thought you needed music theory and made sure things sound clean, precise and correct. But I'm someone who enjoys as much chaos as possible and in the end I'm fine with things deviating from the original idea. As long as it sounds cool!"
I LIE HERE BURIED WITH MY RINGS AND DRESSES is out now. You can buy the record here .
Editor's note: this article was originally published in Dutch. Some quotes may have been altered in the translation.
