I’ll admit it. I’m not particularly fond of lo-fi, slower-paced songs. Of course, I have a few exceptions, but it is not the music genre that piques my interest or brings me the satisfactory rhythms I crave. But when it comes to discovering new, underground, and abstract music artists, almost nothing bears such a rare fulfilling feeling.

As I was sinking into an expanse of Spotify playlists, I happened across a song titled “I Don’t Wanna Feel No More” by the artist Reggie Helms. From the get-go, the sentimental title intrigued me, encouraging me to branch out of my already obscure yet staid music taste. This song brought chills throughout my body—and dramatically enough, tears. The onslaught of emotion this song brought me disturbed the peace I had found in my familiar and comfortable playlists. 

The beginning of the song is introduced with relaxed guitar strums and harmonizing voices similar to that of a church choir. Any gospel-like singing is a key ingredient for my tears— an automatic assurance that I was going to fall deeply in love with this song. The first lyric describes a feeling that rests familiar in my mind, as well as the majority of struggling people on this planet. The power and the relatability are indubitably amplified by Reggie’s poetic phrasing.

“Sometimes I feel good in my chest, but I can never get that to my head.”

These lyrics hold extreme difficulties that are undoubtedly swept under the rug by the unstable state of minds of humankind, distinguishing the seemingly mundane but eminent conflicts of day-to-day life. 

Further into the song’s billows of poetry, another lyric struck me deep. 

“No more mirrors that’ll be my demise, cause I still can’t look my abuser in his eyes.”

That right there is art, pain, and beauty. Not one more than the other—all equally effective in the name of music.

How anyone could even describe a painful thought in such an artistically detailed, profound way leaves me absolutely breathless. I just had to lay in my bed indulging in the pain-stricken emotions this song had involuntarily evoked for me. Reggie’s words and lyrics roll with the punches of life and expose the replicated, chameleon-like days that sedate any form of joy.

If the song does not paint a clear enough picture, although it unquestionably does, the music video Reggie created will obstruct any miscommunication. It manifests a casual yet ornamental filming style to get the message across in quiet and aesthetic ways that pack a punch.

Although this theme isn’t necessarily present in the lyrics, the video somewhat alludes to the oppression of the black community. As it is known, the black community have had the cards stacked against them, unfairly providing them with the burdens of dealing with racism and tip-toeing around the higher risk of death and injustice. 

Accordingly, there are a couple of scenes that commemorate the black lives that were lost due to police brutality. In red spray paint on a brick wall, the phrase “Arrest Breonna’s murderers” is shown. Reggie’s soft voice carries over this scene as well as the beautiful soul of Breonna Taylor, giving her the appreciation and relevance she still needs. In the following shot, an outdated and grainy television screen plays a video of a Black Lives Matter protest, further pushing the undertones of suffering.

Another more soft spoken fragment of the video shows two men awkwardly leaning against each other in stillness, as flower petals pour down on them. Maybe it has a significance behind it—I even have my own interpretations of what it could represent—but I find the lull of the inaction paired with the contrasting dwindles of flower petals to be its own art—its own beauty. It does not need a definition.

“I Don’t Wanna Feel No More” was the missing puzzle piece in the entirety of my Spotify account. The lyrics left me with a festering wound masked by decorative expressions and a delicate voice, and the video offered an artful vision of unfortunate reality.

This song is a beautiful dilapidation in the shuffle of surreal melodies. 

Reggie Helms is an artist with a smaller following and has only a couple of single releases, but I believe that in the near future, his talent will reach greater heights and greater masses. I can now proudly say that I have found a rare occurrence of an artist that checks all of the boxes in my musical interests. This song of his is truly a masterpiece and needs to be heard by many. 

My perception of music and art has always been a cultivation of surface-scraping beauty, but with time, understanding, and a peppering of sensitive, realistic, and weight-bearing melodies provided by Reggie, my conscious approach is shifting. Ugly can beautiful, pain can be beautiful, fear can be beautiful. It’s all a matter of viewpoints and experiences that cohesively form images, both tangible and not so, to be seen in different lights and with contrasting opinions.

That is art. This music is art.