🎶 THE EX — A New Wave of Musical Prose with Reggae Soul 🎤📖 🎸🔥

shemzee (70)freewriterin Freewriters • 2 months ago (edited)

artwork specially provided by NS

Dear steemians,

In the waning light of a Jamaican afternoon, where reggae hums like a pulse through the palms, “To the EXes” delivers not just narrative — but confrontation. It’s a chapter soaked in sunlight, shot-glasses, and scars — a reckoning between art, exile, and the ghost of a country that forgot how to remember.

At the heart of this moment: a song, a critique, and three voices trying to untangle what it means to still care.

🎙 The Track: “Are You Okay?”
The emotional centerpiece is a fictional rap track by protagonist Stan — dissected in a literary review by a fictional critic, Dr. Antonina Petrova. Her analysis is sharp, academic, and unflinching. This isn’t just a rap song. It’s a diagnosis of Bulgaria’s post-communist soul rot.

She picks apart lyrical layers like:

The parody of 1989 — no revolution, just rebranding.

Freedom-as-fraud — where shopping malls replaced values.

Media kitsch — where tabloid queens wear the cultural crown.

Historical illiteracy — where even national heroes are mistaken for soccer teams.

Social implosion — where survival silences truth.

“Angry poetry for a nation without direction,” she calls it.
And she’s right.

.................
THE EX

The late afternoon wrapped La Vista Blanca in golden haze. The shadows of the palms stretched across the white marble, while the deep pulse of roots reggae drifted from the open-air bar. The air was thick and fragrant — a blend of tropical humidity, dry grass, and cinnamon.
Koko sat barefoot at the table, wearing a white shirt and linen pants. A cigar in one hand, a tablet in the other. Across from him, Stan and Stela leaned over the same screen, seated on a white sofa.
Before them, small shot glasses with Jamaican “coffee” — a cocktail of brandy, rum, and espresso, shaken and dusted with cinnamon. Bitter, dense, awakening.
— Stela, I need a to ask you something, said Koko, raising his eyes. Read it out loud, please.
She picked up the tablet, smiled — as if already knowing what would follow — and began in a measured tone:

“Are You Okay?” – Rap as Social Diagnosis
A Critique of Bulgaria’s Post-Communist Condition
by Dr. Antonina Petrova
“Comrades, do you remember 1989 / when in our ghetto democracy came to shine…”
Thus begins the rap song “Are You Okay?” by Bulgarian artist Stan — a piece that demands not just listening, but reading and reflection. This is a socio-political portrait of post-socialist Bulgaria, written with irony, sarcasm, and historical ache.

📍 A False Start
“And Mladenov lacked tanks to put down the uprising…”
The backdrop is 1989. Not a revolution, but a parody of one. No tanks, no resistance, and no real change.

📍 Pseudo-Freedom and Moral Decline
“We took the blame, but with appetizers… / new baseball caps replaced the old caskets…”
“Freedom is slavery, and the slaves are free — / a great paradox in our collective memory.”
This isn’t liberation — it’s consumption dressed as change. Orwell is no metaphor here; he’s a documentary voice. The meatball stayed; only the slogans changed.

📍 Media, Kitsch, and the Fake Elite
“And the tabloid press became greatly important / no place for us in this den of pornography…”
“The Kostinbrod Nightingale and the Roman Pearl Princess / lead our culture towards unprecedented progress…”
Folk idols and tabloid stars lead the parade. Authenticity is pushed aside. Truth becomes entertainment. Disgust is wrapped in glitter.

📍 National Identity and Cultural Illiteracy
“We love Botev — I mean the team from Plovdiv…”
“The King gladly remembered the ‘Slaveikovi brothers’…”
Symbols are gutted. History becomes branding. Cultural memory is confused with PR nostalgia.

📍 Class Divide and Social Implosion
“And if you fail to keep silent for a piece of bread / remember who dares, wins, the others live in dismay…”
“So be careful when you divide the portions…”
Survival becomes virtue. Poverty becomes silence. And those at the top are warned: the knife used to cut the pie still lies on the table.

📍 Artistic Form
This song uses sharp rhythm, irony, repetition. Closer to UpSurT or Zhlach than Western rap, but with heavier politics. Its punch is real.
“And many morons believed in their spirituality…”
A chorus of self-deception, repeated with bitter precision.

📍 Conclusion: The Poetry of Disillusion
“Are You Okay?” offers no answers — only a mirror. This is angry poetry for a nation without direction. For people with no place but with voice. No utopia. Just reality, told out loud.

Dr. Antonina Petrova
Literary Critic and Scholar

Stela closed the tablet and placed it on the table. Looked first at Stan, then at Koko.
— The first sentence alone is a miracle. Culture Magazine? And rap? she said with a half-smile.
— Yeah, Stan replied. Guess their “high culture pipette” finally snapped. But it’s well written. Nina nailed it — sharp and poetic.
Koko raised an eyebrow above his glasses.
— “Angry poetry for a nation without a place” — I like that line.
(he chuckled) It’ll get quoted.
— She delivers a diagnosis, not a review, said Stela. This isn’t just “I like the track.” This is an indictment — thirty years of deceit laid bare.
She paused, then added softly:
— The question is… who’ll read it? And will they care?
— The ones it’s about won’t read it, said Stan. Or they’ll laugh. The rest will share it, like it… and forget it in two days.
The shots sat untouched. Damian Marley — Make It Bun Dem echoed in the air. Outside, under the palms, the evening slid down like memory.
— Koko, if you could return to Bulgaria… would you? Stan asked.
— First flight out. But I can’t. They’d kill me, Koko replied. Then narrowed his eyes:
— But you — you’re worse off, man. You can go, but you won’t. You’re not home here, and you’re not home there. Am I right?
— Right, said Stan. I’ve lived in inner exile for years. Now it’s external. I had a circle there — but mostly I felt like a White Guard officer in a Soviet kolkhoz. I speak the language, but I’ve got nothing to say to Homo Postsovieticus.
— You know what we Bulgarians are, man? Koko leaned back. We’re multiform. Don’t judge the whole nation.
Stan said nothing.
— Yeah, there’s envy. Greedy scum, fat-bellied traitors… But there are others too.
He leaned in, lowered his voice.
— Let me tell you about one. Father Gerasim, priest in the village of Petlyovo. Worn shoes. Quiet eyes. A thug named Patsi Chuka promised to renovate the church. Big speeches. Cameras. Ribbons. But the sand was missing, the tiles ended up in his villa. The altar built cheaper than his toilet.
And the priest didn’t stay silent. In front of everyone, in the church, he said: “What you’ve done is theft from God.”
Everyone froze. Patsi dragged him out and beat him in the town square.
The priest filed no complaint. Kept serving — arm in cast.
Three days later, Patsi died in a car crash. Left only debt. His empire — empty.
And Father Gerasim? He buried him. Alone. In the same church. With the same hand he once blessed him.
“I forgive him,” he said. “Because if I don’t, I’ll become him.”
Koko paused. The air trembled.
— So don’t say we’re all scum. Some still exist. Few. But they do.
Stela sipped and smiled.
— Specimens. Dying breed. But golden.
— So what are we, then? said Stan. Moral refugees?
— No, Koko raised his glass. We’re EX.
— EX?
— Yeah. Each of us carries our own.
EX-oligarch.
EX-pat.
EX-ile.
EX-plosion.
EX-traordinary shadows of Bulgaria.
The only thing we’re not… is EX-human.*
They lifted their shots.
— To the EXes! Koko shouted.
— All the way down! said Stela.
— Let it burn like truth, added Stan.
And they drank. In one pull. On EX.