Happy Friday Friends! 

If you're under lock-down like most of the world is right now, then you already know there are very few things to look forward to these days aside from our freedom. But as per usual, music heals and we've been blessed with so many releases - and at least for me, there were two highly anticipated drops. 

After four years, PARTYNEXTDOOR dropped his highly-anticipated album "PARTYMOBILE" with a feature from none other than singer-turned-business-mogul Queen Riri causing toxic men all over the world to rejoice, feeling heard and seen and understood during these dire stretches of solitude. But that's not all, after years of EP's - Jessie Reyez finally dropped her highly-anticipated first album titled "Before Love Came To Kill Us". Now, you're probably reading this like .... okay? But bare with me, there's a connection here and it's not just the fact that both are Canadian. 

If you listen to PND's album first and then follow up with Jessie's, the overall story of love in both albums compliment each other. Jessie and both PND tell the story of love through the eyes of a female and then male perspective. There's exposed feelings of lust, love, anguish, regret, anger, and revenge. Now both are known to lyrically pour their hearts into song and we appreciate them for it, but the fact that we got both on the same day - unintentionally - it's like a hidden gem. PND starts off the album talking about wanting to give a woman the best of him after disappointing her, serving up a redemption song; now fast forward to The News and things have changed. He's accusing his partner of cheating and no longer being deserving of him - shoe is now on the other foot. It starts the tale of a back and forth within the relationship - spanning songs like Split Decision, Loyal, Touch Me, and Trauma. If you've heard the album, you know the list goes on and on - ending with Savage Anthem as seemingly the final straw. 

Now, full disclosure, I will say that listening to Savage Anthem - as a woman - gutted. I am not, and I repeat - I am not saying that all men think and behave in this way when it comes to love and relationships. But PND undoubtedly hits the nail on the head with expressing what one could assume is a male's pov when it comes to the complicated range of emotions and feelings that men are typically unable to explain in love and war. Now, I can't speak to a man's actual mentality; this is all just assumption. But I am a woman, so now cut to - Jessie's album "BLCTKU". Jessie literally starts the album with a song titled "Do You Love Her" and the first line of this song is "I should've fucked your friends". 

SIS. SIS. 

Stay with me, here. Do You Love Her emotes a feeling that almost every woman has experienced once in their life. It's not a sad sappy song like the title suggests. This is a song about being pissed and those feelings of wanting to fuck shit up because you deserved better yet having your partner or ex-partner look at you like they didn't create the "monster" before them. (Quick nod to her pen.) Jessie doesn't just write sad love songs - she writes the kind of love songs that pack a punch. 

The rest of her album tells the story of love in an interesting compliment to PND's album. Following up with songs like Intruders, Coffin, and Ankles. In Intruders, Jessie sings about loving a man and him belonging to her and the idea of not allowing no one to intrude on what they have with lyrics like "I kill all intruders, cus my love is ruthless". Then we get to Coffin, and her partner blames her for the demise of the relationship but yet and still - she loves him to death with lyrics like "we'll need a coffin, hand made for two, cause I love you to death". Fast forward to Ankles, where she's basically like fuck all of this, and recognizes no woman will ever compare to her - much less reach her "Ankles". 

You ready for the real kicker? In the outro of Savage Anthem which happens to be essentially the last song on PND's album before the remix of Loyal, there's what feels like this "Come to Jesus" moment where there's a choir and a woman singing a solo of adlibs. Cut to, the second to last song of Jessie's album - lined up almost the same by the name of "I Do". In "I Do", Jessie sings about the feeling of regret and wishing things were different once the relationship is over; loving someone so much, you're willing to look past everything you've gone through. In the outro of "I Do", much like PND's "Savage Anthem", the song takes you to church with a choir, drums, an organ and that same solo female singing adlibs at the end of the album. Coincidence? I don't really know. 

What truly ties the whole thing together for me is the idea that all is typically never fair in love and war. What we would give to know what really goes through our partner's mind in moments where shit hits the fan. It almost seems as though words never suffice. We ignore the red flags and the advice of those who love us most because we believe we know what's best. Nobody knows our relationship like we do. You have two seemingly different perspectives that somehow connect and they tell a story that a lot of us know very well which is why we connect with the art in the way that we do. We feel seen and heard and understood in a way that lets us look in the mirror without the painful punch of facing all that you've worked so hard to avoid. 

It is what one could assume to the be the end of a love story and the telling of one tale, told two separate ways. 

Through music and lyrics, because words just never suffice.