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Final Lament Song review by Camilo Smith
What you hear in Radha Botofasina’s Final Lament is a master at work. In full command of her voice, her lyrics glide over bass strings as nimble as the passages that are coming out of her mouth. These passages speak to the suffering at the hands of police violence.
In a time of national healing Botofasina’s voice is the catharsis that we need. Not a simple inward look at the pain and suffering that has come from making Black bodies lifeless, it’s also a call to strength, a rallying cry with an up tempo jazz riff that puts the listener on the streets along with those fighting for justice.
That this singer can bring both feelings of sorry and summon the energy to conquer oppression in a single stanza says something of her powers. The arc of her song is not to give in, but to continue fighting.
I can’t breathe/I can’t breathe/ on the ground/robbed of dignity/life forced out of me
Botofasina’s “Final Lament” is the sonic embodiment of the horror and pain we are living, but the song doesn’t leave you there, it carries you soaring into the heavens. Her music is a salve for the soul in troubling times.