SINGLE REVIEW: KYSHONA ft KEB' MO': CAROLINA

It always takes a degree of presence to get away with calling yourself by just one name - Kyshona certainly has that. #TEAMw21 first met Kyshona in a side room in The Winemakers, a venue in Holborn where she was performing with Jenn Bostic and Sarah Darling in a triple header Songwriters Round. Her writing was powerful then, we remember asking her about "Cornelius Dupree" a social commentary on injustice from her "Go" album that truly rocks and lyrically hits home, it wasn't one for an acoustic Songwriters Round she would politely say.

Kyshona Armstrong was born in South Carolina, the introduction to this song on "Kyshona Live" picks up the story

"The moment I found a way out of South Carolina I took it, I went to college all the way out in Athens, Georgia, so still in the South. Sometimes, you have to leave a place, learn some things, grow a little bit, so you can take it back to your home town and be an agent for change and growth"

With that backstory we dive into Kyshona's new single, a studio version of the song featuring the talents of Keb' Mo'. There's an opening shuffling beat over which bass and electric guitars lay down a funky groove. It is a sound that populates the majority the tune apart from bridge.

As Kyshona opens up the vocals, it is with that refreshed view after being away that she is seeing things.

"I can’t separate the wonder from the why

That dying tree I used to climb still got blood on the vine

I went searching for redemption

Found what I was missing in a song

I can’t help but question if we cut the ties

Am I better off without you

Or is my memory a lie

I’ve been searching for the magic

Might be where we started long ago

I don’t know"

There is something of an overarching urge to return home, to forgive and forget.

But I’m headed South

Carolina take me home

I don’t care what all went wrong

Take me in, take me in

Been on my own

Had a dream and had to go

Took me high it take me low

And brought me back to you

Back to you"

The latter verse question though if there is any great desire for change and Kyshona takes some of the "venom" from the second line as she delivers the third.

"Well if I could live without you hell I would

I still taste the venom in your water

A little trouble would do some good

Are you searching for redemption?

Do you pretend to listen anymore?

Ultimately Kyshona finds that things have not progressed anywhere near as much as she'd hoped and the longing that brought her home, is matched by what she finds being the force that is driving her away.

"You still feel the same

Yet distant as a memory

Wish that I could stay

Your secrets keep me

running and running

There is pain in every rock

And hurt in every hill"

There is one final burst of optimism, that there can be a force for change, however it seems a way off for the moment but #TEAMw21 wish Kyshona well in trying to encourage and engineer it.

"I don’t care what all went wrong

I still belong to you

Been on my own

Meet me halfway on this road

We got many miles to go"

"Carolina" is a reminder of just how potent music can be as a means of getting your message across.

Kyshona will be appearing at Black Deer in the City Oct 25th