This is, in fact, a Dedication.

I charge you, O daughters of Jerusalem, that ye stir not up, nor awake my love, until he please.

~Song of Solomon 8:4~

Did you ever get a mixtape?

*heart skips a beat*

I never did. Always wanted one though. Still do. That shit is romantic man.

I did get a couple of dedications on letters, and when I was 19, one guy even wrote me Lauryn Hill’s rap from “Turn your lights down low”. Damn-near swooned. 

You see words, lovely as they are, can fail us. And even when you know what you want to say, there’s just something about accompanying those words with the right chord progression that makes sure nothing is left unsaid. Some songs do this better than others.

MNEK’s “Don’t call this love” is one of these songs.

He's very cool. A little too cool maybe...

Sent to me by a she-human I like called Patricia, this minimalist RnB ballad from the rising British star who I first heard on an amazing Rudimental track, encapsulates all the emotion one goes through when they know they are smack in the centre of that confusing liminal space one occupies, when they are falling in love against their will.

Emenike’s sweetly-strained tenor accompanies a melancholic piano that brings out the tension that arises when you  find a soul you recognize and inadvertently want, whilst dealing with your own situations and inefficiencies.

The story of our lives.

Anyway, if you are really digging someone but you just don’t know if you handle all the heaviness that comes with it, this is the song that might buy you the time you need  to figure it all out.

K.