Indietronica Artist Jordan Rakei Reflects On Racial Privileges With Powerful New Single “Clouds”

With his upcoming third album What We Call Life hitting shelves on September 17th, indietronica singer-songwriter Jordan Rakei has shared his latest single “Clouds”. Serving as a personal response to the flurry of conversations surrounding race and discrimination that have resurfaced over the last year and a half, Rakei reflects on his own mixed race heritage and the privileges his light skin has brought him. “That whole movement made me think about this a lot, and then therapy enabled me to write about it,” he says. “I’d never been that open about this in the past.”

With cyclical rhythms in line with Alt-J’s looping choral style, and delicate R&B-infused vocals similar to James Blake, “Clouds” is a poetic and striking offering that criticizes the media and its polarizing abilities. “Who am I, who am I? / But a slave to the lies / It’s my dangerous mind / Under the skin of my darkest white”, he sings on each pre-chorus.

Alongside “Clouds”, the remainder of his upcoming album What We Call Life boasts a more honest and candid sense of lyricism, something he attributes to listening to singer-songwriters like Laura Marling, Scott Matthews, Joni Mitchell, and John Martyn while writing his new record. “Their lyrics are usually very honest, and sometimes not even ambiguous,” he says. “I was jealous of how open they were, when my stuff in the past had been more like commentary“.

The rich, futuristic production on “Clouds” gives a compelling edge to the singer-songwriter genre, accentuated by his thought-provoking lyrics.

Listen below: