Eva Pentel
The FADER’s “Songs You Need” are the tracks we can’t stop playing. Check back every day for new music and follow along on our Spotify playlist.
Aziya is one of my favorite artists to follow on TikTok. Her feed is a great mixture of music theory and fandom that makes you feel like you could either be in the audience at one of her shows or getting up on stage yourself. She's been teasing the new song "chain" for a little while now and has both explained some of the meaning behind the song as well as describing it as making her feel like she's "driving down an LA highway with all the Gorillaz sticking their heads out of my hot pink post-apocalyptic Mad Max-style, monster truck."
That feeling of passing the speed limit with wild abandon is undeniable on "chain," a driving pop-rock song filled with carefree melodies and scuzzy guitar chords. The song has roots in a more somber place, however. Aziya wrote the lyrics after finding that a community she was part of based around a bar in east London was reticent to speak up during 2020 in the wake of the BLM protests and a rise in anti-Asian violence. Frustrated and confused by what she had thought was a progressive space, she put her energy into writing a song to create a more welcoming one of her own.
In an email to The FADER, Aziya explained a little more, saying: "Just like a chain is made up of individual pieces linked together I wanted to write a song that highlighted to my fans they are a part of my world. I hope it reminds people it doesn't matter what you look like or where you come from, when you come to my shows, or you listen to 'chain,' you're a part of something and you are accepted."