“Hi, hi, howdy, howdy, hi, hi!/While everyone is minus, you could call me multiply/Just so you know, yes, yes, I’m that guy/You could get five fingers and I’m not waving “hi” ”
On the Regular is a fierce proclamation of Shamir’s sexuality with an envious ability to fire off intricate rhymes without missing a beat. The song’s a call to arms for Shamir, defining who he is whilst refusing to be defined or taking any guff from any swine. This is his stage, this is his time, and he’ll be damned if you try to drag him down from it. The first single is effortlessly funky and sexy with an incomparable beat that I double dare you not to dance to. Vegas is about the titular city, about its energies and what fuels it – kerosene, dreams and industry, trying to reach for the stars but getting dragged down by reality of the city and its disdain for your entitled views of your own destiny. In for the Kill is about the self-sacrifice you choose to make when you run away with someone and cut all ties, or perhaps just when you decide that who you are isn’t who you’ve been and who you’ve been around. The song is about surrendering yourself to the romance of abandonment and the romanticism of the new, but there are signs of regret and wistfulness in the fact that the character in the song wants to say goodbye, urging his loved ones not to be upset, that one day he’ll return – changed. Shamir has the countertenor voice of Neneh Cherry crossed with Prince with all of the sass and verve of Bowie in the Boys Keep Swinging video, each song like a lip-stick smear rebellion and a two fingered salute to traditional gender roles. If you're not dancing to this yet, then you should be.
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Martin Summerfield
Monthly music columnist for the Kirkby Extra, sometimes article writer for Get Into This. Freelance writer/artist/maker. Archives
February 2017
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