Loti’s impassioned, anti-valentine, 4-pack EP Violent times comes from a dark place. It’s heartbreak personified. The r&b star tackles difficult issues of self-love, mental health, and questions society’s investment in romantic relationships, which often leads us astray. He does all this while delivering soulful harmonies that showcase a voice unafraid to be heard even sans instrumental.
The singer’s intentional decision to feature only women artists on the tape comes from a desire to explore his complicated relationship with his past romances. He needs not only his voice to be heard, but the lovers’ too.
We begin the tape with ‘Dying Inside’, a deep dive into the monsters in Loti’s head, and maybe ours too. Forced to face the music, literally, we have no other choice but self-love.
On the other side of this confrontation is the man we see searching for love on ‘Swear For Me’. What good is love if you can’t share it? But Kasheefah’s persona, the partner to Loti’s duet, isn’t as interested in love as he is. She delivers a blasé yet intricate and melodious verse that leaves both the listeners and her singing partner wanting more.
‘90s Hopeless Romantic’ is an ode to love lost, love unsatisfied, and love that was never meant to be. If we don’t learn from the hurts and sins of the past, how can we grow? Whether that means being determined to love the right way like Loti, “trying to love my woman like I’m trying to still get her”, or reluctant to just dive in, and “be frustrated” as Yinka Oshodi expresses in her verse, amidst clever wordplay and harmony.
2020 brought with it a pandemic, lockdown, political unrest, and we all barely made it through. ‘2020 won’ illustrates heartbreak as an added bonus. “Down bad” is an understatement, if anything. For many of us the world ended, and maybe is still ending, especially since love, romance, the one comfort we might have had, or hoped to have, still proves unstable.
The fire that burns passion also destroys, and Loti reminds us of this duality in the best way possible, that valentines for many, also comes with violent times.
Written By : Ruby Sapphire Chijioke-Nwauche
