NEW MUSIC | IMAN LAKE ‘FOR THE BIRDS’ (REMIX) FT. JONNOAQ

By Rishma • On What is New

East Lon­don musician/songwriter Iman Lake is a storyteller who blurs the line between RnB and Hip-Hop to immerse listen­ers in a diverse, for­ward think­ing sound­scape. Work­ing closely with cre­at­ive dir­ect­or Azeez Bello, Iman’s music is accom­pan­ied by a strong altern­at­ive, and some­times abstract visu­al dimen­sion. His new release is a remix of his track ‘For The Birds’. Out 10th June, the alt hip hop track sees a col­lab with Jon­noAQ who provides the bars in the verses, to which Iman adds the melod­ic chor­us hook and fur­ther bars (which show­case his ver­sat­il­ity as a performer/writer).

Lyr­ic­ally, the song about being done wrong in a rela­tion­ship, but know­ing that karma will come round to the per­son that has crossed you. It also speaks to the after­math of the last year, and how the people at the top are cel­eb­rat­ing com­ing out of lock­down and con­tin­ue to thrive, leav­ing the ever-increas­ing under­class bereft of hope and oppor­tun­ity due to a year of dis­ap­point­ments. It comes with equipped with an impress­ive mono­chrome music video which ads fur­ther intrigue to the dark­er ele­ments of the song, as Iman explains:

“Last year we all wit­nessed first-hand how incom­pet­ent our so called “lead­ers” are. I feel like there was a lot of frus­tra­tion through­out the coun­try espe­cially with the youth, so I really wanted to cap­ture and chan­nel all that frus­tra­tion and energy. This song is for the gen­er­a­tion that felt like they were fucked over by the people at the ‘top’!”

As an inde­pend­ent artist Iman’s abil­ity to pro­voke thought and inspire awe through his music and visu­als has garnered crit­ic­al acclaim since his debut single ‘11:5’. His last release ‘The Answer’ gained acclaim for its music video which depicts the mer­ging of some of soci­ety’s most prom­in­ent black indi­vidu­als, pos­ing the subtle ques­tion: do these people really have The Answers? Iman also trans­lates the style of his evoc­at­ive music into his com­pel­ling live per­form­ances, hav­ing per­formed in much loved Lon­don ven­ues such as The Jazz Café and 100 Club.

His oth­er singles ‘Nep­tune’ and ‘Stranger Days’ helped garner media sup­port includ­ing No Sig­nal Radio, Rinse FM, Reprezent Radio, New Wave Mag, and earned him a spot on the 2020 30 under 30 list with Guap Magazine. ‘Stranger Days’ was also accom­pan­ied with a phys­ic­al com­ic book that sold out inter­na­tion­ally 3 times and was met with a great response on social media. Iman Lake has a series of single drops planned for the rest of 2021, before clos­ing of the year with his highly anti­cip­ated EP ‘Don’t Dream’ which will be accom­pan­ied by a short film dir­ec­ted by Azeez Bello.

‘For The Birds (Remix) Ft. Jon­noAQ’ is out Now.

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Rishma

Edit­or / PR Con­sult­ant at No Bounds
Rishma Dhali­w­al has extens­ive exper­i­ence study­ing and work­ing in the music and media industry. Hav­ing writ­ten a thes­is on how Hip Hop acts as a social move­ment, she has spent years research­ing and con­nect­ing with artists who use the art form as a tool for bring­ing a voice to the voiceless.

About Rishma

Rishma Dhaliwal has extensive experience studying and working in the music and media industry. Having written a thesis on how Hip Hop acts as a social movement, she has spent years researching and connecting with artists who use the art form as a tool for bringing a voice to the voiceless.