Akine - "Rise Above"

A powerful and damning song from the Ukrainian artist Akine is a defiant and unsparing observation of what happened to her country following Putin’s invasion. In the vein of Fiona Apple , Tori Amos or Bats for Lashes, these powerfully composed songs feel incredibly vital. Of the track, Akine states, “I wrote this song when I was realising that the regime in Russia began to roughen, become more uncompromising and plunge deeper into what seems to look like a 1984 esque anti-utopia. There still hung a question of how far this would go.

That question was very violently answered on February 24th when Russia attacked my home country, Ukraine.

Having fled the war, I can only hope to share the message of what Putin's Russia has turned into. Destruction, submission and all encompassing greed that can never be satisfied.”

Says Akine: “I wrote the song partly as a reminder of what could happen if I don’t work for what I want” explains AKINE, continuing “It’s about a hypothetical person who wastes away their potential. This causes her to spiral into a wasted life of addiction and self- harm, becoming the worst version of herself, taunted by thoughts of what she could have achieved.”

It’s a song about a loss of innocence, about growing up and taking wrong turns in life, and once again the 17-year-old singer doesn’t shy away from honesty, doesn’t romanticise the harsh reality of the scene. The lead character starts to forget herself as she travels further in to her life of hedonism, squandering what she could have been. Akine captures the helplessness beautifully as the lead character drifts further away from what she once was.”