HIS HAPPINESS SHALL COME FIRST EVEN THOUGH WE ARE SUFFERING
HIS HAPPINESS SHALL COME FIRST EVEN THOUGH WE ARE SUFFERING concludes a trilogy of albums by Backxwash which began 3 years ago. The series is primarily auto-biographical, with fragments of stories from her periphery. With every record, Backxwash travels farther back in time, reliving and experiencing the anger and despair that she had not granted herself at that time.
God Has Nothing To Do With This Leave Him Out Of It (2020) began as a candid processing of her experiences in her adult life in realtime, while her sequential record I LIE HERE BURIED WITH MY RINGS AND MY DRESSES (2021) was a reflection on her adolescent and early adulthood years.
HIS HAPPINESS SHALL COME FIRST EVEN THOUGH WE ARE SUFFERING (2022) delves into environmental influences during her youth and times pre-dating her existence, concluding this therapeutic practice with a return to the here and now with a stronger sense of self than when she began this therapeutic and cathartic trilogy.
i lie here buried with my rings and my dressess
In her self-released album I LIE HERE BURIED WITH MY RINGS AND MY DRESSES, Backxwash serves harrowing raps over industrial horrorcore beats. This audio-visual landscape of pain and despair features Backxwash as an empress of chaos on a path of self-destruction.
I LIE HERE BURIED is the second album in a trilogy. Whereas her previous album God Has Nothing To Do With This Leave Him Out Of It was a study in mercy, in I LIE HERE BURIED Backxwash finds solace in being consumed by her malevolent behaviours.
I LIE HERE BURIED WITH MY RINGS AND MY DRESSES features productions by Backxwash, clipping., Nowhere2Run, as well as features by Censored Dialogue, Lauren Bousfield, Sad13, and Ada Rook.
Backxwash aka Ashanti Mutinta is a Zambian-Canadian rapper & producer based in Montreal, Quebec. She is most noted for her 2020 album God Has Nothing To Do With This Leave Him Out Of It, which won the 2020 Polaris Music Prize.
Her work is based in the horrorcore, hip-hop and industrial metal genres, and includes a culmination of themes around the intersection between faith, identity, and queerness. The poetry of her lyrics are the beginning of a cathartic healing process in which she is granting herself permission to be angry.
Her album HIS HAPPINESS SHALL COME FIRST EVEN THOUGH WE ARE SUFFERING is now out on Bandcamp, and will be on all DSPs in 2 weeks. It is entirely self-produced and includes instrumental and vocal features by Morgan-Paige, Pupil Slicer, Michael Go, Censored Dialogue, Sadistik, and Ghais Guevara.
videos
PRESS highlights
Kerrang!
COVER STORY: Backxwash: “This is therapy for me… I’ve created a universe for all these pieces of work to live in”
Pitchfork
ALBUM REVIEW: HIS HAPPINESS SHALL COME FIRST EVEN THOUGH WE ARE SUFFERING by Adlan Jackson
Revolver Mag
BACKXWASH: Inside the Dark World of the Extreme-Rap Visionary by Gregory Adams
The Quietus
Following last year's award-winning God Has Nothing to Do With This Leave Him Out Of It, Montreal's Backxwash returns fiercer than ever, finds Will Salmon
summer 2024 shows
05.30 bad bonn kilbi—dudingen, ch
06.15 everyseeker—halifax, ns
06.21 suoni per il popolo—Montreal, QC
08.02 beseda u bigbítu—Tasov, Cz
08.03 off festival—katowice, pl
08.15 la route du rock—saint-malo, fr
08.16 pukkelpop—Hasselt, be
08.17 lowlands—amsterdam, nl
We acknowledge the financial support of Backxwash’s 2024 tour dates by FACTOR, the Government of Canada and of Canada’s private radio broadcasters.