Protests and funerals have been walking hand in hand for the better part of the last few years as the ongoing fight for justice in the Black community has raged forward to an unprecedented level, and the new music video for Miss Storm’s single “Quicksand” is a painful reminder of just how real the crisis we’re facing as a nation right now really is. Forget the politics and the talking heads on CNN and Fox News; this is a life or death fight for survival, and this song and its companion video do not pull punches when it comes to describing the war.
INSTAGRAM: https://www.instagram.com/1missstorm/
It’s easy to get so immersed in the lyrical content here that we lose sight of the instrumental depth at hand in “Quicksand,” but when analyzing the compositional wit and detail here, there’s no getting around the quality of the songwriting Miss Storm is presenting us with in this single. The backdrop is arguably as stirring as the frontend of the track is, with the harmonies formed only making the subject matter feel more serious and less surreal, the latter being far more common in the majority of hip-hop and R&B I’ve heard covering this narrative.
“Quicksand” is hard to digest, but it’s undisputedly one of the most solid hip-hop ballads I’ve had the great pleasure of reviewing in 2022. The fact that it’s coming from a purely indie source is relatively unsurprising given the predictability of the mainstream in recent times, but its provocative cohesion is something I wasn’t anticipating out of the gate. Whether you’re new to Miss Storm or not, the bottom line here is pretty simple – “Quicksand” is an all-around must-listen, and not because of its social message alone. This is true to the traditions of hip-hop and R&B, if not advancing them into a new era of critical importance.
Kim Muncie