On her first LP, South African singer-songwriter Filah Lah Lah explores the idea of identity, belonging, and self-discovery. With an upbringing as a diplomat’s daughter that saw her family spend a number of years posted in California, and then Indonesia, she’s had an interesting relationship with “home” as a concept. “I like to joke about how I've always been thrust into spaces and experiences that I seemingly really don't belong in,” she tells Apple Music. “And I’m so heavily influenced by those experiences back there. But, now that I'm a bit older, I do have this deep sense of groundedness. Now, I believe home is wherever and with whomever your true self lives. It's not about a place. This album became home for me, and it showed me who and what I wanted to be as an artist. It's an ode to what I always thought I could be, as an artist and as a human being.”
Across ON AIR’s 18 tracks, Filah revels in becoming the fully realised version of herself through various shades of R&B and elements of hip-hop, a natural evolution following her previous two EPs, 2020’s Filahsofy and 2021’s We’re Gonna Be Just Fine. Using a dial-in radio station as a framework—and employing an alter ego as host—ON AIR is her homage to how various mediums inspire people to become artists. “I feel like DJ Lah is the version of me that I wish I could be sometimes,” Filah Lah Lah (Reabetswe Fila Ranamane) explains. “She's very mysterious and chilled out, and creating her and creating that setting gave the album an extra fun element”. Read on as Filah takes us through key tracks from the album.
“818”
“This was the first one where I explored the radio thing pretty in depth. Initially, it was just supposed to be a short thing, and then maybe some call-ins, but it felt weird without a host. And so that's how DJ Lah was born. I wanted it to feel spacey, like you're in some sort of orbit somehow. But also that you're in a car or you're in a car that's also a spaceship—just something that felt like you're moving through a specific space or through this little universe that you're listening to. That was really fun—[especially getting the] fake callers. I called Loyiso [Gola]—he sent me six voice notes of different characters. And then I asked my cousin; she lives in the UK, so that's the British lady you're hearing. Those lyrics are maybe four years old—it's from a poem that I wrote, that I never used, but it’s powerful.’ So then that's how we ended up there. It's the proper introduction to the journey.”
“PAST MYSELF”
"‘PAST MYSELF’ was initially a different song—it was a breakup song. [Now] this is a song about really needing some time to process your feelings, so that you can get up the next day and be the bad b*tch you know you are, kind of thing. So that's why in the first half of the song, it's very like, ‘I just need some space, I need to…' And then in the second half of the song, it's like, ‘Okay, this year they blast Lah Lah real loud, let's go.’ It's just about taking a day off to beat your inner saboteur, so that you can get up and be like, ‘Okay, I'm back’.”
“TOURMALINE” (feat. Patty Monroe)
“‘TOURMALINE is just attitude. I don't really consider myself a rapper, but I consider myself a student of hip-hop. So I was like, ‘I think I can write a few bars to this’. I felt it needed to be a bad girl's anthem. Patty Monroe is the best. She's so insane. She laid her verse out and I was like, ‘Okay, I don't need another feature on the song. This is her.’ And then she had this poem written, and she was like, ‘Can I read you the poems too?’ And that's what bridges ‘TOURMALINE’ into the little interlude after it. It was her beautiful poem. I think it's one of those songs that's going to creep up on people.”
“BITCH”
“I get catcalled a lot. [Recently] I was out and some old man just... Yeah. And my Uber driver on the way there asked for my number as well. So it was one of those days where I was like, ‘I'm actually so tired of this.’ I remember hearing this sample with cowbells—something that reminded me of a Neptunes beat. I remember when I was praising the beat going like, ‘B*tch…’ So that's how that happened. This should be an anthem for girls who are tired of getting catcalled, basically. It's just a fun song that's just like, ‘I don't need you to tell me [that I’m that b*tch], because I know’.”
“READY”
“My best friend [producer and songwriter] Nkhanyezi Khanya Mangoale made that beat, and I've always been such a fan of his—he’s one of those artists that works nine -to-five and doesn't believe that they can be an artist. So this was giving me something that is just bouncy enough, but also quite fresh too. It's not exactly ’piano, it's not exactly Afrobeats. I love that. And then I got my band to just add some cute little elements into it. It's about recognising that my moment is here, and you guys better recognise too.”
“CALL ME”
“This was about a past situation of just somebody who did not recognise [what I brought to the table]. And it took me some time to get over that and be like, ‘No, but actually no—it was definitely you and not me. I think I played my part. And also I'm too fine for that.’ In the first part of ‘CALL ME’, it's fawning over this person and being like, ‘Oh, I'm sad. What's going on?’ And then in the second half it's like, ‘Actually, no. You are disrespectful and you need to get your oomph together for real’. Definitely, there's an energy shift with the new Filah Lah Lah music. It's much more affirming than it used to be.”
“NOBODY” (feat. Blxckie)
“I had been singing this in a different pitch, but this was 2022. And I kept on telling my boyfriend, ‘Listen, I need you to make a beat to this. I don't know what, but I want it to sound like samples of '70s songs in a hip-hop beat.’ You know when they speed up an Aretha sample or something like that. And then we didn't come back to it until a year later. And then the beat just started building and building and building. And I was like, ‘This is beautiful, but I really want to put a guy on this’. Who could I really put a little bit outside their comfort zone for this? Blxckie. This is when he was still coming up a bit. And at this point when I reached out to him, I knew he was booked and busy, and he was working on everything that they're doing now, basically. So I was like, oh, I don't know. I hope he'll say yes; he did, and I loved it. I know that he has a romantic side to him, but even though it is R&B, ‘NOBODY’ is still quite niche.”
“DREAM” (feat. Ndabo Zulu)
"So Dein [Conrad O’Toole] produced this one. I can see something in my dream, even if it's an object, and then I'll see it the next day, type of thing. And I know it sounds quacky and wacky, but it's the truth. I had a dream that I became a star. I guess maybe it wasn't until after I made the song that I realised that I was already a star. But I think I needed the process of this album and the signing, and building the team that I have now, to realise that I am. So the song was really about dreaming that you can achieve certain things, but also seeing it inside of yourself. Because I think for a long time I didn't see myself as the belle of the ball. But this is the first time in my life that I feel I really could be the belle of the ball. Just as I am.”
“HOME”
"‘HOME’ is about my dad. There was a point in my life where every day after school, I would see his face first walking through the door. And we would take really long walks together. There was a point where he was really, really ill, and he was going through these rounds of chemo. And I just remember him being like, ‘I really want to take a walk with you, though.’ We took one of the longest walks we've ever taken together. And we just talked about everything, music and politics and religion and things. We walked in the rain together, and I think that was the last time I walked with my dad. So ‘HOME’ is really just the little girl version of myself, just hoping that I do get to see him again. And I've grown so much since the last time he saw me, but there's just the sense that he still sees me and that he is watching over.”
Tracklist:
- Filah Lah Lah - OOH CHILD
- Filah Lah Lah - 818
- Filah Lah Lah - FALL
- Filah Lah Lah - VAUGHN'S SONG
- Filah Lah Lah - PAST MYSELF
- Filah Lah Lah - TOURMALINE (feat. Patty Monroe)
- Filah Lah Lah - RIGHT WITH YOU (feat. Mars Baby)
- Filah Lah Lah - WAY IT SHOULD BE
- Filah Lah Lah - BITCH
- Filah Lah Lah - READY
- Filah Lah Lah - A FEW THINGS
- Filah Lah Lah - CALL ME
- Filah Lah Lah - TIME LAST NIGHT
- Filah Lah Lah - NOBODY (feat. Blxckie)
- Filah Lah Lah - POSSIBILITY
- Filah Lah Lah - OUT OF TOUCH
- Filah Lah Lah - DREAM (feat. Ndabo Zulu)
- Filah Lah Lah - HOME
Stream the full Album below.
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