002. "The Baby", Samia (2020)
Growing up is hard to do. Most of the time, it’s terrifying, like glaring out from a tall balcony into the boundless below; there is so much to see and take in and worry about and predict, infinite possibilities and finite choices ahead. You never know if you’re doing too much, or not enough, or the wrong thing entirely. The only certainty is the promise of uncertainty.
But it’s inevitable. The lives we lead are born of the turbulent transitions we experience — we only learn things when we challenge ourselves, when we fly whatever proverbial coop we’ve found ourselves planted in for a little too long. There is always discomfort in staying too long, but there’s discomfort in leaving, too. But you keep going, all you can do is keep going, and if you learn how, you take things for what they are.
Therein lies the true essence of growing up, of becoming an adult: you learn to take things for what they are, but you know yourself well enough to accept that you want something different for yourself. Within all of us exists two opposing facets: the emotional mind, composed of the desires and impulses and avidity, and the reasonable mind, the problem-solver and angel-on-the-shoulder. For many, it takes attention and understanding, the careful observation and experimentation of the opposing minds, to reach a compromise: the wise mind, the better self, the rationality and balance we all seek. The catharsis of knowing you’ve done the right thing, even when you didn’t want to.
There’s no right way to grow up, but there is a wrong one. If we never get to know ourselves, the good and the bad and where they meet in the middle, we never learn how to make those great compromises. It takes a lot of digging, a lot of stress and sadness, hard work and missed opportunities, but wouldn’t we be missing out on a lot more if we never tried to reconcile our internal contradictions?
Samia knows herself. In her debut album, The Baby, the twenty-five-year old is exposed and raw, numerating every flaw and defect, professing her deepest insecurities and greatest deficiencies. At times, Samia is desperate and attention-seeking; she is lonely but terrified of solitude and willing to do anything to evade it. She is savage, a self-described “predator”. In the song “Triptych”, a ballad stripped-down and indulgent all at once, the artist sings of her manipulation of arousal in exchange for the promise of devotion, begging to be remembered, idolized, encapsulated in paint and resin in the memory of her beloved: “I’m the moving mouth, moving mouth with my eyes closed / breathing an excuse, breathing loose through my new nose / I will buy a round on your dime like I used to / feeding you my cake, you my cake, eating it too”. Here, Samia is willing to admit what many of us are afraid to: in the most dire of circumstances, in our deepest moments of yearning, we’re willing to do anything, to make ourselves tools in the eyes of those we want, to become so tempting we are indispensable to them.
Within the record, there exists an interesting juxtaposition between that paralyzing balance amidst movement and stasis, the moments between treading water and swimming laps. The album’s opening track, “Pool”, is the musical calm before the storm: the track is resounding, warbling, coated in layers of sweeping, immersive production, tethered only by the presence of a single, steady kick drum. She sings of that boundless below, the infinite possibilities, her voice cutting: “If you are really scared with your mouth up in the air / then try to breathe under the water through this tube / how long do you think we can sit here / before we have to move?”.
And then, Samia takes off running. Every track is bursting at the seams with pure motion; listening to the album in its entirety feels like a sprint, moving your body as fast as you can, dodging obstacles in the road, sweating through your shirt. And Samia makes it feel so good. Every song bounces in its own way, from the sardonic “Fit N Full” to the somber “Does Not Heal”. Every instrument track works together in a way only the most intuitive of musicians can orchestrate, every beat and note a call-and-response, every song a resounding agreement in the air.
And in everything, the artist is honest. She’s scared, too, a young woman growing up in love, navigating a world expanding and contracting around her. The album’s title is no mistake: Samia is healing from, and letting go of, the troubles of adolescence. She is learning what she wants, what she is willing to do for it, and what she should do. And she’s sharing everything.
But Samia, through every sentimental stanza in The Baby, can take things as they are. The song “Big Wheel”, ostensibly the album’s standout track, is swift and sweeping. It stands as an inventory of Samia’s life, what she has, what she doesn’t. Telling of a past lover who wronged her and an old friend who she’s outgrown, she croons: “He feels bad for doing what he did that night / she bought new shoes in Tokyo / and I got bad news, but I didn’t fight / I got bad news, but I didn’t fight”. “Big Wheel” is about looking out over your life, taking stock, coming to an understanding. Sometimes, we get bad news, and we don’t fight.
I had never heard of Samia when I went to see her show. My friend called me late one evening with excitement in her voice; she had an extra ticket to the artist’s show at Johnny Brenda’s, a renowned venue in the Fishtown neighborhood of Philadelphia, and I agreed. I remember desperately needing to leave the house then, but never knowing where to go. I was nineteen then, an age that never seems to go right, too young and too old for everything at once.
I used my fake ID religiously then. I had ordered them in a group of freshman girls a year before; they arrived neatly packed in a black wallet, glossy images of us gracing the cheap plastic, fitted with a fully functional scanner. For so long, it had granted me access anywhere I wanted; I went to bars and clubs and shows across Philadelphia and New York, even once bought a rosé seltzer from the grocery store in my hometown just to prove to myself that I could. My priorities in life were quickly changing; I’d been a social nomad for so long, afraid of other people for no apparent reason, and I was ready for my life to become something else. Some of my most treasured memories exist across these spaces I eluded: the booths at Kung Fu Necktie in Fishtown, the dance floor at Drinker’s Pub in Rittenhouse, the tables nearest to the windows at KGB Bar in Bowery (still, to this day, my favorite place to frequent). It was so fun to break out of the mold I’d fashioned for myself, to meet friends and strangers and flirt and laugh and dance. It felt like I was finally living life.
But I showed up at Johnny Brenda’s that night, ready for a night to remember. My friend had raved about Samia the entire ride over, a young artist whom she’d met before and texted from time to time. I’d never gone to a show before without hearing a single song, and I was proud of myself for attempting some spontaneity, something I was still getting used to then. The moment I whipped out my little plastic card, so thin it flapped in the wind, the bouncer’s face soured. He left without a word and brought it into a back room, then reemerged swiftly to lay down the law. Our tickets were invalid because I’d tried to get in illegally, he said with admonishment, and he was confiscating the fake ID to turn in to the authorities. I was never to come back, he informed me, because he would remember me.
I was mortified. I was mortified for my friends, for the embarrassment I’d caused them, for the scene I’d made in what I thought was a respectable institution of the Philadelphia music community. (Time has taught me that I don’t actually care that much about the integrity of Johnny Brenda’s.) My friends were all in their mid-twenties, well past this awkward stage, the one where you have to deceive others simply to enter a space. I don’t think I’d even planned on buying a drink that night, I just wanted to be there. I wanted to be in a crowd of unfamiliar people, to hear songs I’d never heard before, to have fun with the people I was with. I just wanted something to remember. I suppose I got what I wanted.
I have always been young, and I have always hated being young. I grew up with three sisters, all much older than me, all with lives and homes and accolades by the time I was careening into early adolescence. My eldest sister was my best friend for the bulk of my life, sometimes my only friend, despite our ten-year difference. I watched all three of them, individually, grow up ahead of me. They made mistakes and learned from them, tried out possible paths, fell down and got back up. They moved to cool, interesting places, making homes in Louisville and Montreal and Chicago. My sisters are wonderful; they’re all powerhouses in their own right, tapped into a seemingly endless supply of work ethic and self-sustainability. My parents raised four women to have big dreams, and then taught us how to go after them.
So while my life was times tables and school uniforms, my sisters were making something of themselves, each in their own way. I learned so early, through them, what life could be. They had boyfriends and best friends and jobs and hobbies. I saw everything in front of me so clearly, but I couldn’t have it. All I wanted was to grow up so badly, to leave these awkward years behind, to be a fully-formed woman like my own flesh and blood were. It felt unfair; I felt trapped.
And then I worked so hard for so long, wore myself to the bone, made myself sick with anticipation for this life. I got used to the ritual of making myself hollow and filling myself back up again, sacrificing everything for the great unknown of the future. Every day, month, year before I left home felt so long, brimming with apprehension, staring straight at the pot of my life which had yet to begin boiling.
When I crossed over into early adulthood, into “real life”, I let go of so much. I had been so tense for so long, so coarse and restive, and for once, I wanted to celebrate all that I had earned. I’d eschewed so much time and energy, saved every dollar I earned, and made it to an acclaimed university, and now it was time to blow off some steam. I had fun and explored and enjoyed life more, but in turn, I sacrificed much of myself. The part of me that was once diligent and sturdy was quickly being usurped by the part of me that wanted to have pure, unabashed fun. My emotional and reasonable minds were entirely at odds, with no foreseeable chance of agreement.
I’d wanted to go out that night and have fun. Instead, I got caught, and I faced the consequences. This wasn’t the first time I’d been turned away for my age, but it was the first time I felt real shame about it. The promise of a good time had come so quickly, but disappeared even faster. It felt so cruel, and in an instant, the facade had fallen. Suddenly, there was a razor blade chipping away at my life, eroding what I thought I had. I thought I was invincible and free. That night, I was not. I walked home to my studio in North Philadelphia completely dejected, feeling an unassailable disgrace through every part of me.
I had tried to be so old, so big and strong, for so long. But I wasn’t, and everyone could tell.
In the grandest account of my life, this experience should be nothing. It should be something I look back on and laugh at, the little girl with the fake ID at the Samia show, but for some reason, it just can’t be. After that night, I refused to listen to Samia for nearly a year; even seeing her name in playlists and articles made me wince. I knew nothing about this artist, nothing about this person, but the mere mention of her name made me remember that razor-blade-feeling cutting through my delusions.
I wish I could explain how and why I first listened, what drew me to finally give in and give the artist a try, but I don’t remember the exact impetus. What I do remember is listening to “Big Wheel” for the first time, sitting at the desk in my room in South Philadelphia, doing my makeup in front of the mirror. The song flooded me, penetrated my body and soul; it just made sense. In fact, it made too much sense: just like Samia, I had gotten bad news that very day, just hours before that moment. I’d been betrayed in a way that was very, very real. The situation at hand, which still causes me agony to remember today, was a part of history, an immovable fact of life. The bad thing had already happened, and I was powerless to stop it. Now, it was just bad news. It had traveled from a moment in time to a secret to a confession to this: just me, alone with it, letting it live within me.
I sat there in front of the mirror, and then I sat with it. I let it move through me until it got a little easier to chew and swallow and digest, and then, I started to get over it. I knew I had to grow through this, to grow up. It would be misleading to claim that I’ve fully overcome what happened; I still have to swallow it all over again some days, it just goes down easier now. Through all of it, I listened to The Baby religiously. The record narrated my daily walks, my morning showers, my nights of restless sleep. For weeks, I would sit in front of my drum kit, shuffle the record, and play whatever song came up again and again and again until my arms screamed for refrain.
It’s funny how bodies of work come into your life at the exact right time; for months, The Baby served as my personal coming-of-age soundtrack, my anchor to the real world, my reminder that I can’t sit in the pool forever. Real growth is about meeting yourself where you’re at, recognizing that you can’t fast-forward through life, no matter how much you’d like to. Sometimes, you have to slow down.
When I listen to The Baby now (it’s still a daily activity), I think of what would have happened had I been granted admission to Johnny Brenda’s that day. I wonder if its meaning would have completely dissipated, if I’d have fallen in love with it as I have now. There’s irony in the conjunction between this record’s significance in my life and the artist’s intended meaning; while I had to accept that I had to grow up at my own pace, Samia was singing about her own journey, of coming to terms with the world around her. As she professes her own intimate personal inventory, I’m encouraged to explore my own: what parts of myself am I willing to give up for a person, place, or thing? What have I already given up? What exactly within me is set in stone and unassailable, and what exactly is coarse and vulnerable? The Baby reminds me to make the world my own, to know myself, to keep going, to live through everything as I was meant to.
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