Pietermaritzburg-born pop singer-songwriter Shekhinah has chiseled her name in the history books of South African music and the hearts of multitudes since the drop of her acclaimed debut album Rose Gold in 2017. The songstress augmented her catalogue on the 7th of August with a surprise-released studio album titled Less Trouble, a follow-up to her sophomore 2021 project Trouble in Paradise. Unlike her previous bodies of work, no single heralded the advent of the album, and the contents of Less Trouble move like a three-part love story.
Lasting for just over half an hour, Less Trouble is an eleven-song emotional odyssey built atop the hybrid production of alternative R&B and pop, with minor touches of afrobeats. Assisted by the likes of amapiano’s star player Young Stunna, and R&B songbirds lordkez and Mars Baby, Shekhinah’s newest cut is a simplistic tour of love broken into three sections: the phase of letting go, the process of initiating new love, and the act of turning over a new leaf with another lover. However, the basic nature of the skeleton belies the complexity of the issues of love dissected on the record, and the sonic cross-section of the album reveals a masterful blend of sounds and rhythms, from elegiac guitar strums that dovetail with the bluest moods of the album to afrobeats-tinted sounds that offset the moods occasioned by the former.
Shekhinah | Credit: Celeste Jacobs
With Less Trouble, Shekhinah breaks down the tensions of an unfulfilling relationship (“Break Up Season”, “Hard to Leave”, and “Bare Minimum”), forging ahead in the wake of a breakup (“What Are We”, “Risk”, “Too Good to Fail”) and the rediscovery of love and happiness (“Spoonky”, and both installments of “Steady”).
At its peak, however, Less Trouble is the opus of a woman grappling with balancing the scale of her peace and the existence of a relationship threatening to tip it and push her beyond the ledge. What is noteworthy is that the hopeless romantic trope is given a unique twist in this story. Here, there is no pity party; in these three acts, Shekhinah starts out as a dissatisfied lover wrestling with emotional turmoil and tormented by thoughts of abandoning the relationship, with her breaking point surfacing on “New Casanova”. The abdomen of the project portrays her making the courageous decision to choose herself, triggering the cascading effect of her finding love and satisfaction on the latter parts of the record.
Listen to “Spoonky”:
One remarkable aspect of Less Trouble is the feature and production selection and how these two things interplay to set a particular atmosphere and to frame the characters within the narrative in a certain way. It might be deliberate on the side of the artist or a miracle from a serendipitous accident of creativity, but there is relatable realism about “Bare Minimum”, its melancholic feel and lordkez’s inclusion, which lends the song a feel of two women mirroring each other in the same way two friends relate to each other concerning a relationship they feel is no good. On the other hand, “Spoonky”, juxtaposed with the first three songs of the album, depicts growth and a character who, despite how damaged she is, is willing to let down her walls to usher in her new suitor (in the shape of a vigorous Young Stunna) and a fresh chapter and to consciously show her back to the disappointments she suffered in the name of love in the past. And in these respective songs, Shekinah’s headspace and sound are galaxies apart from each other, and yet both songs accurately locate the moods of the subject matters, creating songs in harmony with the emotional and situational climates.
To bill Less Trouble as a heartbreak-driven record would be to limit it. It is a love story of redemption after suffering the loss of love and a heartening reminder that the grass is oftentimes greener on the other side. In addition, Shekhinah is an avatar of growth, of choosing oneself, and of being an advocate for asking for nothing but the best when in love.
Check out Less Trouble:
