Conscious Route and RamZee connect for the slow and dreamy boom bap of ‘Running.’ Produced by Mackenzie, who first worked with Conscious Route on the 2023 ‘Belterz’ album, the track also features some light scratches courtesy of Jabbathakut as it opens with some soft keys before drifting into an understated break.
Lyrically, the wordplay belies the calm production, as Conscious Route and RamZee explore themes of addiction, suicidal thoughts and struggles with racism that can drag people into darker patterns of behaviour and being, as Conscious Route rhymes, “In two situations I went to take my life / hate, deprecation, highly priced / you either get better, or get buried / love, wonder, or go under.”
However, behind this is a message of hope and growth - of changing, coping and becoming a stronger person through the struggles. As RamZee raps, “Crawled out of my darkest hour / appalled I call myself a ruin / that grew back to a tall tower.” The track sees Conscious Route and RamZee trading verses before finishing by going line-for-line with each other as they declare, “we still here.”
Disarmingly powerful in it’s message, ‘Running’ shows that you don’t need to shout from the rooftops to make a point as its calm insistence carries a subtle power of its own…
