In late May, Pittsburgh singer/songwriter Dejah Monea released her debut album, Flowers And Dopamine, a collection of sumptuous neo-soul tracks.
“Pills Interlude,” a Bryson Tiller-esque meditation on beauty standards, social pressures, negative self-talk, and pharmaceutical relief, glides by in a haze of chilly synths and moth’s wing hi-hats. Monea scrolls through her timeline on social media, comparing her own body and life to the unrealistic snapshots that she sees there, hurting even though she knows that these images are algorithmically selected to make people hurt. Eventually, the percussion fades, tendrils of analgesic jazz keyboard spread outward, and Monea asks, “Are we only worth the things that we may buy? Pictures we may post? How much we are desired?” She concludes that we’re becoming “blind with open eyes,” an observation that is true both metaphorically and literally, as the blue light emitted by our omnipresent screens has been shown to damage retinal tissue and lead to deterioration of vision over time. Now that we’re able to see everything at once, we risk blurring it all into nothing. “Pills Interlude” tackles some pretty hefty topics with ease and grace.
Buy Flowers And Dopamine here
Check out more from Dejah Monea and follow her on social media
Bored In Pittsburgh 