For DijahSB, like many of us, anxiety starts and ends with relationships, as their clever new EP, Girls Give Me Anxiety, attests.
In our house when I was growing up, my sister and I never heard the words “anxiety” and “stress”. We experienced it, though; or rather, we both often induced it in our parents, who referred to their frustrations with our aggravations as “agita.” For me, agita always starts in the pit of my stomach, masquerading as indigestion that starts popping like a bonfire, sending pea-sized cinders up into the base of my brain where they start burning through my conscious thinking.
For DijahSB, like many of us, anxiety starts and ends with relationships, as their clever new EP, Girls Give Me Anxiety, attests. Opener “Life’s a Trip” flows on a mellowed-out, herbally assisted vibe, while DijahSB rolls with the punches and beat: “I don’t take nothing to heart / My tank full and it got to push a button to start.” “That’s Alight!” finds Clairmont The Second joining DijahSB in trying to unscramble mixed signals and messages from unknown numbers, playing it cool and all nonchalant until it’s clear that it’s not. The self-skewering title track features a high-pitched counter to DijahSB’s rhymes (“I know this motherfucker not talkin’ about me / You don’t be texting me that / You always on Twitter / Don’t be acting like I’m the crazy one I give you anxiety,”). It goes down a treat, even though it echoes the fear-inducing cascade of error messages and system failures featured on the record’s cover art.
Continuing the Conversation
20 or 20 Ep. 012: DijahSB: DijahSB dives deep into their breakout record, 2020 the Album, Toronto’s rap scene, queer artists bashing down the door of hip-hop, how to be good at Twitter and so more.
Closer “Brickyard Way” doesn’t leave us hanging upside down on the emotional rollercoaster. Over a cascading piano motif, DijahSB pulls into that high-occupancy lane where sparks are flying and anything feels possible as long as you’re with your co-pilot: “Uplifting / That’s all I need from you is uplifting / I just wanna feel like I’m in paradise once you arrive and we kick it.” Though they offer no clear resolution as to whether this relationship ends up at a dead-end or keeps driving out into the sunset, the overall takeaway is that positivity and potential wins out over pessimism and paranoia. In the end, there’s never any real need for stronger medications beyond the fresh flow and bubbly bounce of Girls Give Me Anxiety as long as you follow this recommended dosage: take more than once daily until the tunes get lodged in your head and/or DijahSB drops the next exemplary joint in their catalogue.
