[SONG OF THE DAY] SAKIMA - "Virtus Domum"

As things have been winding down and I’ve taken time to reflect on the year in music we’ve had, I can honestly say that without a doubt SAKIMA is the most important thing that happened to music this year. With every single he’s released he continues to share carefully crafted narratives that are universally relatable but are still deeply rooted in his perspective as a gay musician.

In his latest, “Virtus Domum”, he addresses personal experience of being taken advantage of and being the subject of unwanted advances. Throughout the song you hear him working through the experience, complete with brief victim blaming and what I assume are things he wishes he’d said during the specific encounter he’s speaking to.

With every song he’s released in the past year I can’t help but think about the New York Times interview with Jay-Z where he says something that I’m sure he’s repeating from a therapy session: “What you reveal, you heal.” In every day life it can be incredibly difficult to expose our emotional wounds and begin the healing process. The fact that SAKIMA is very directly slaying his demons so openly will undoubtedly help a lot of people with theirs and even possibly prevent some trauma from happening altogether.

As he told Paper in an interview about the track, “I really hope that for anyone who relates to the track, that it gives them a sense of control over their own experiences, and reminds them that they are in charge of what happens to them. Even when something happens to you outside of your physical control, you still own your story and what becomes of it.”