If you fancy the likes of The Weeknd, Frank Ocean, Charlie Puth, Zayn Malik, you will fall head over heels for TarekTV’s new record, Nervous. The peculiarly melancholic, articulated dark-pop sound and eerily-relatable lyrics will get the better of your emotions and have you feeling both in love and disappointed by the girlfriend/boyfriend you don’t even have. Yeah, it’s one of those records that has a towering emotional presence that is also catchy and as of consequence, you willingly replay it while imagining you’re Justin Timberlake in the Cry Me A River music video. Dope!
We’ll first take a moment to congratulate the independent artist on his formidable visuals. In case you didn’t know, pulling off a high-quality music video in low-light conditions is… outrageously difficult. Try lighting your face for a selfie at night while not using your camera flash. And fyi, one candle or two won’t suffice. Also good luck reducing that noise 😀
Nervous goes straight to the point from the second you hit Play. No waiting time, no prelude, no monologues. Which is to be appreciated. The artist obviously lives in 2020 and gets the importance of delivering the song to the audience ASAP. And as you’re grasping the first moments of Nervous, the singer’s voice makes its way to your brain first and to your heart second. Reason being, TarekTV can sing! So you might be equally dazzled and charmed by the soulful voice he grants you with: “I know that you’re nervous/ Hang me up and break me down/ You said that you’d never/ Let me back around but now/ You’re sayin’ “Baby, don’t you worry/ About the other night”/ I’m saying “Baby, don’t you hurt me/ I can’t take another fight.” So… who’s this gaslighting b*tch? 😀
As the singer moves forward with the story, things are peaking lyrically, musically, and emotionally: “So as long as you know you’re staying with me/ I’ll keep running away from my pain” going really low with the last line and repeating it on a higher pitch right after, “I’ll keep running away from my pain/ It’s a shame you don’t know how you/ Cut a hole in my heart with your name/ The kinda thing that slows me down”. There’s a shocking real-life basis to the narrative presented in the record as by TarekTV’s own confirmation: “I lived inside of an incredibly-toxic relationship for the last 5 years up until early 2020. Nervous is about choosing to try over and over again with a deceiving cheater, just to get burned all over again”. My God. She doesn’t even deserve this beautiful record. The narcissism is real with this one.
What exquisitely enhances the experience of auditorily consuming Nervous, are those heavy-AF drums. Did you notice how they intermittently boom with grave demeanor and seem to mimic the heartbeat of an anxious person every time TarekTV gets to sing “I’ll keep running away from my pain”??? Woah! Musical elements like this are a delight to savor deeper and deeper with each repeat. We’re sold on listening to the entire album now, which is named Love, Lust, Destruction 😮
As if the epicness we’ve witnessed until now wasn’t enough, TarekTV hits us hard with the following verse: “And from the start I couldn’t trust ya/ Oh God how I tried and I tried/ The sleepless nights, the endless fights, you’re wrong, I’m never right/ There ain’t no winnin’ with a person who’s always sinnin’” Uhm… This artist just proved women ain’t the only ones having to put up with “dog” behavior. Shout out to Beyoncè and her Lemonade. TarekTV then goes into retaliation mode and puts the sinner in her place: “Take what you want, you ain’t never gave a f*ck, I’ve given up, had enough/ Always in a rut, never in love, chasin’ sex, always knew you were a sl*t/ Ain’t no f*ckin’ reason for you to lie to me/ Now you got a reason to go run and hide from me/ It’s sad to say that I was never enough/ Shoulda caught on and put the trust in my gut.”
If most of the time male singers tend to superficially touch hurt and betrayal, TarekTV went berserk and bared his soul to the audience with no restraint in his Nervous record. It’s a song with a powerful effect on the consumer and it triggers you to listen to it repeatedly in order to find out more clues and details on the said relationship. And not to forget his formidable vocals. A MUST HAVE on your R&B playlist.
Song Credits: Lyrics and Audio Production by Tarek Farmer (TarekTV)
Make sure you add Nervous to your playlists on Apple Music HERE, on Deezer HERE, on Amazon HERE, and on Spotify below:
Written by Mariana Berdianu
Blue Rhymez Entertainment ©2020
Blue Rhymez Entertainment 