In today’s age, technology has flooded our lives with content. Caught in the mire are modern musicians who champion an art form that’s more widely distributed than any other throughout human history. And we, more often than not, overlook the music created by unfamiliar faces because it’s challenging. We’d rather have an easy listen, a known quantity to skim through while we think about something else.
Hearing is easy, but listening is difficult. Welcome to “Why We Like It”, where we rebuke the trends in favor of thoughtful analysis and underknown sounds.
“Baby” — Twitch 4EVA
Listen On:
How We Found It
Ghanaian artist, songwriter, and musician Twitch 4EVA feels like the best kept secret in the rapidly-growing international afrobeats music landscape. He steps firmly into the forefront with his highly anticipated debut, Lost EP, and the wavy new video for the EP’s accompanying lead single “Baby.” The song is written and sung entirely by Twitch 4EVA and produced by Yung D3mz. Mixing elements of afrobeats, R&B and pop music together Twitch creates a unique sound, which he describes as “coastal music.” Luckily for us, the dance inducing single landed in our SubmitHub inbox!
Why We Like It
Smooth guitar enters over a various assortment of afrobeat style percussion instruments as West African sunlight peers through a window. As we see the outline of Twitch 4EVA’s face in the light, we feel a blend of R&B in the guitar chords mixed with a Ghanain rhythm. When his voice enters we hear an intonation that infuses pop stylings with these other two genres. A sound that is now becoming more and more revered through similarly amazing artists like Lila Iké, Amaarae, and Odunsi. However, the thing that immediately sets Twitch apart is the tone of his delivery. We hear the depth and rasp in his voice reminiscent of a classic reggae sound like Peter Tosh. From the first line, “I dey mad ohhh,” as the styles connect you feel nostalgic yet totally locked into the present. You start to move your body to the beat yet also relax into the vibe.
Twice in the beginning of the video, we see the image of an hourglass with sand slowly falling. This seems to represent the time Twitch has to convey to his lover the commitment he has to their love. Throughout the song, Twitch has lines that feel urgent in their complementary analysis of their love like, “Me cyan get you off my mind. Girl you’re one of a kind.” He must express that she singularly exists in his focus. Then Twitch sings things like, “It be different feeling different healing anytime wey yuh stop by,” to express how his lover not only is someone who he desires, but someone who completes him and sets his mind at ease, which couldn’t be more important while navigating the music business.
After the second iteration of the chorus singing, “because you are my baby” in repetition with multiple R&B styles of vocal layers that together sound sweeter than ripe pineapple, there is a mini bridge. It also exists as a lead up to a slight instrumental outro repeating how the song starts. A laid back electric guitar solo rings through the already full instrumentation, and seems to represent a glimmer of hope through realization that potentially Twitch’s message of love and devotion has gotten through. The strums sound like the feeling of looking into a lovers eyes knowing that they believe the truth of the love that you are trying to get them to take hold of.
From The Artist
Personally, I find it difficult to express my feelings to my partner. At this point and time we weren’t going through a rough patch, but there were people complaining about us being together. So I was trying to explain in the song no matter what people said about her I still liked her. It was that serious. So I just let out the emotions in the song. And I drew inspiration from my mom as well because even though my dad put my mom through hardships, my mom kept asking my dad what he was up to. Where he was. She kept wondering how my dad was doing, and it made me realize that if you truly love someone you don’t really care about what people say. So I learned a lot from that, and this song is really special to me because it comes from a true place, like a deep place in my heart.
You get me?” – Twitch 4EVA for CentralSauce (2020)
More From Twitch 4EVA
About the inspiration behind his debut Lost EP as a whole, Twitch says, “I called the project ‘Lost’ because relationships are a journey and you can get lost on the way. It’s confusing because it dictates itself, and then sometimes we don’t understand how it works. We feel lost, basically. On the other hand, sonically, the project is filled with expansive music across afrobeats, highlife, R&B and afropop that you can dance to – whether with your beer, with your partner, or with your friends; whether you’re at the beach or in the club or at home”. The full project has no skips, but my clear other favorite track besides “Baby” is the opening track “Distance.” Also make sure to follow Twitch 4EVA on Instagram and Twitter.
More to Discover
Subscribe to the CentralSauce mailing list so you never miss out on the freshest sauce. Check out this continuously updated playlist of songs Miki has added to our Discovery section! Each track or artist has been featured in our “Why We Like It” section, so be sure to check out the page here on the site.
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