Photograph: Danil Nevsky/Stocksy United
In 2019, Almeda – on Solange’s When I Get Home album – cradled me. It took me by the hand and gave me one of those forehead kisses that leave you feeling warm all over. “Sis, you have got this and you will be great,” it told me, with unwavering confidence. It was the bottle of water next to my bed after waking up thirsty from a big night out. It was the £5 note you find in a coat pocket you haven’t worn in a while. It came as no surprise that Solange was my artist of the decade – her letters of encouragement to black women in the form of albums helped me navigate this decade of chaos and change. Her songs dominated my spring this year, with the help of Smino, while the soundtrack of my post-breakup summer was rightly a combination of the rallying cry that is Megan Thee Stallion’s Realer – encouraging fearless independence – and a softer and more gentle Arlo Parks’ George, which represented the blooming and carefree summer romances of 2019.
My Spotify Wrapped tells the story of who I am today. In 2017, I was well into my second year at the University of Bristol – at this point I was in a constant state of rage. This was the year I wrote one of my first ever pieces of viral content, an article titled White Bristol Loves Black Culture But Not Black Students. I remember having my tweets about this issue published in the media, and I was trolled for weeks. But I knew I was much tougher than online dragging. I sat in the arts and social sciences library working through the mess blasting Abra’s Pull Up. “Pull up to your crib riding shotty, shawty. Pull up with your bitch now it’s a party. Said I’m crazy you ain’t seen shit, yeah.” The song made me feel invincible.
In 2018, I was much more focused in (what I thought was) a loving relationship, and finding myself outside of student politics and activism. That year, I interviewed Chloe x Halle for a cover story, spending 24 hours listening to their entire discography beforehand – no wonder they’re my artist of 2018. Lil Mama’s Lip Gloss ruled the spring of 2018 when I stood in my students’ union elections and selected it as my battle song of choice. I lost the election by a measly 22 votes, but I don’t regret a thing. I graduated that year with a 2:1 in social policy with quantitative research methods and blasted Janelle Monae’s I Like That through my windows. Her words “I don’t care what I look like but I feel good. Better than amazing, and better than I could” rang through Park Street from my student flat opposite our geography library as I packed my things, ready to move back home to London.
But everything comes back to Solange. Don’t Touch My Hair from A Seat at the Table was my track of 2016, and seeing it in my Wrapped reminds me not just of that year, but of seeing her perform it live at Lovebox festival this year. I turned to my friend as the song’s final trumpet blew, and we wept in each other’s arms. The crowd dissipated as festivalgoers eagerly rushed to the exit, but we let them flow around us as we bathed in that moment, overwhelmed with all we had survived. This was a cathartic release. Listening to Solange perform songs that I had such a deep and personal connection to reminded me of how much I have overcome and how much I will continue to overcome.
As she belted 2016’s Cranes in the Sky, it brought back memories of watching my first university crush tongue-deep in his new girlfriend’s mouth two weeks after telling me he didn’t want to be in a relationship, while 2019’s Dreams resurfaced the paralysing feeling of hearing my first serious boyfriend telling me he wanted to “end the relationship” over the phone. I didn’t let these feelings consume me, but I let them wash over me. When the lights went out on the main stage and only the flickering bulbs on the fairground rides lit our way home, I felt reborn. Solange’s music has carried me through some of the most difficult losses and tremendous wins, and I owe so much of my growth to her healing sound and black girl realness.
I’m excited about what stories 2020 will have in store and how music will colour those memories.
To celebrate the end of the decade, Spotify is unlocking 10 years of your streaming data. Get your Wrapped now and relive the music that mattered to you – and click here to find all the music that mattered to Chanté Joseph
