Feeling a Way With "feel away"

“But truthfully, it hurt what you could've been (feel away). It's not you, so I guess it's me (feel away)”

Since his 2019 release “Nothing Great About Britain”, Northampton rapper Slowthai has gained nothing but respect and love from fans and new-comers alike of the multi-faceted Hip Hop genre. With each release, he proves himself as a versatile and capable artist, a full range of sounds, emotions, and melodies present on each of his projects.

This week, he released a dense yet humble song that exposes his more vulnerable side, which juxtaposes his normally “hardcore”-adjacent sound. “feel away” is an introspective love song in which Ty explores the pain and nostalgia of love while his relationship seems to be falling apart. He battles with what he wants, what he feels, and what he perceives from his lover’s words and actions in an understated, pregnable way (pun intended).

With features from James Blake and Mount Kimbie, the tenderness of the song is truly resonant. James Blake’s crooning “I leave the dent in my car to see what I could’ve lost” mixed with Mount Kimbie’s production elicits a viscerally emotional response from the listener, the words of the song echoing within the psyche of an empathetic audience who can inevitably relate with this song in some way, shape, or form.

Even the album cover and the music video have thoughtful symbolism regarding a failing relationship; the apple into which he is biting on the cover is filled with worms, representing the relationship’s internal deterioration while he still gladly takes a big bite of it. Within the music video, Ty is seen being pregnant (and later cut open on the delivery table) alongside his love interest, showing how prepared he was to take the world on with her, how much empathy and hope he felt for their future. Now, he has discovered the truth and must overcome what he has/could have lost.

Evidently, as seen in the below tweet, this song is extremely important and personal to Ty, and he reaches out to his fans, spreading nothing but love. “feel away” allows one to take 3 minutes and 23 seconds out of their day to feel a certain honest way, and that is beautiful.