100,000,000
East London based Trinidad-born rapper BERWYN brings back his dulcet manner in a raw back and forth conversation with himself, exploring mental health on ‘100,000,000’.
A hollow instrumental sets a blank canvas for BERWYN to paint a picture of the anxieties that’ve been ruminating in his mind. Digging deep to lay his thoughts to rest, he sheds light on the depression he faces living so far away from his motherland – feeling absent from his family’s touch that now seem to live ‘100,000,000’ miles away at this point.
BERWYN truly wears his heart on his sleeve ‘like a tat’ in the bruised dialogue. Opening up to us about the times he had bought a car, not so he could get from A to B, but so he could take shelter from the street to sleep in the backseat. Now if this bar didn’t cut deep enough, then the fact he wrote the chorus to this track while in a YMCA carpark in the front seat of the car he was sleeping in at the time surely will.
Married with visuals set to pull on heart strings curtesy of loose.work, the opening scene depicts BERWYN cruising in a blue Saab shortly after waking up from his slumber in the driver’s seat. Taking a trip down memory lane, BERWYN portrays past events during this timeline. From shining light on the positive times; making beats in the driver’s seat and playing card games over a drink with a mate. To more solemn times burrowed in the back of the car trying to gather warmth by rubbing his hands together or using a lighter. In a scene falling within the half-way point. Hickling seems to portray a lonesome night BERWYN may have spent stationed in a carpark with spotlights possibly mimicking the harsh glare of carpark flood lights. A trio of BERYWN’s are placed beside the vehicle as the assortment of light isolate his expressionless gaze into the eye of the lens.
Feeling defeated at times, BERWYN confesses that he’s just simply ‘tired of being tired’. Yet, even with his back against the wall, BERWYN goes onto state adversities such as ‘only happen to those that can take it’. He’s telling others that can resonate with his story to keep their ‘chin up’, as they’ll soon make it out of those formidable ‘smoking mirrors’, highlighting the drive this man possesses.
It’s probably clear by now that I want to see BERWYN succeed more than anyone in this industry. The vulnerability and honest truth he shares with his listeners is undeniably heart-warming. He truly deserves it all.