Migraine – Cheryl Craigie (reviewed by Dave Franklin)

Hip-hop music, rap, and all the other forms of urban-infused music that it spawned, were always great at speaking honestly and dealing with reality and truths, the minutiae of everyday life, and the stuff of the human condition. And whilst most use such traditional and well-regarded platforms to fire off salvos of self-aggrandisement and victimhood, talking about haters and their perception that everyone is out to get them, Cheryl Craigie talks about more universally relatable, not to mention less sensational and silly matters. In short, she cuts through all the BS!

Migraine! The song does what it says on the tin, discusses Migraine, but more importantly, it narrates their effect on those who suffer from them. Over a sort of electro-hop beat, one built out of simple, solid and unfussy beats and trippy and shimmering digital inclusions, Craigie delivers her to-the-point, purposeful and everyday raps.

And that is the most refreshing aspect of this song in particular and her work in general. It’s real. I know that every urban artist and R&B diva, hip-hop wannabee and rap also-ran say that they are “keeping it real” and “telling it like it is,” but the reality is most of these wonky wordsmiths waxing lyrical about the hustle and the hassle, the game and the struggle, gritty street life and how hard they have had it, seem to be doing so from their bedroom in their parent’s house in suburban Connecticut. (Other middle-class lifestyle examples are available.) What I am saying is that rather than being a lived experience, in reality, it is all done for effect.

How much more real can you get than rapping about something like the crippling pain of migraine? Not much, I’ll wager.