In today’s age, technology has flooded our lives with content. Caught in the mire are today’s musicians who champion an artform 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.
“Ur Mine” – Jae Himself
Listen On:
How We Found It:
Newark-based, Portuguese-born emcee and singer-songwriter Jae Himself only recently made his way into our song submissions inbox, with “Ur Mine” bursting forth as a choice cut.
It might be his first CentralSauce submission, but that’s not to downplay his hustle, which has involved learning English as a second language, developing a commanding sense of hip-hop and its tenets, and chasing a career as an honest, introspective wordsmith.
Why We Like It:
The first thing you’re likely to latch onto is the propulsive percussion, but there’s a lot more to “Ur Mine” than the ambling instrumental. Jae adorns the looping five-note phrase with candid comments on familiar moments such as falling in love, sharing dreams, warding off suspicious friends, sharing memes, and going out of your way for one another. The fact that it’s a story of a ‘side dude,’ competing for wholehearted love, only makes these instances more pressing: each unremarkable exchange is mired in romantic repression.
It’s these understated moments – and I mean moments, interstitial as could be – that add up to a deceptively astute vision of modern love. Though framed with the oft-invoked language of alienated youth, “Ur Mine” subverts expectations, unfolding as a treatise on trust, confidence, honesty and affection.
From The Artist:
My last long relationship came from a situation similar to this, as bad as that sounds. It wasn’t this exact story in the song by any means but I think having lived through that situation it was easy for me to create something that was more compelling than what actually happened. I also had to pen something that more people could relate to so not going into the small details of what I experienced was done purposefully.” – Jae Himself for CentralSauce
