By Jessica Helen Brant
Music is therapy. That’s what KASH believes. The Ayden, North Carolina r&b/hip hop artist incorporates a sauteed style of southern rap singing into his music that comforts much like soul food fills the stomach with a sweet, achy sensation. Watch the premiere of KASH’s new single, “Feel Like,” which was filmed at the Durham Bulls Athletic Park in downtown Durham. The camera pans over the Lucky Strike water tower, the empty stadium, and observes from the rooftops of once industrially booming neighborhoods. KASH, in introverted and introspected mind-spinning momentum, scans the vista and confides in us: “It feels like the walls keep on closing in. I feel like I’m losing all my f**king friends. You were suppose to ride ’til the very end. I guess we all come to the very end. That’s why I don’t let nobody in. I stay to myself and they wonder why. I guess it’s why I feel like I’m all alone.” This is a shared experience many artists have. The more isolated we become, the more artistic we feel. The more we write, dance, paint, compose, and accomplish. It can be a suppressing feeling to our systems, too. We feel even farther away from reality the more destruction we witness to it. We detach and fold in and question our essence of existence. We straddle both sides; we can live with and live without and it can mess with our psyches gravely. Check out the video and take a moment to live in the feeling.