Whether it was an intended part of her grand rollout, or one of those happy accidents that make sense when you ponder them in retrospect, Durban singer/songwriter Yashna’s recent single “Fight for You” set the tone for her most confrontational, emotive and conceptual body of work, Flaws & Fears.
Her previous projects documented her surreal transitions into the limelight, striking a delicate balance between her career, family life, and relationship, usually from the guise of an outside looking in interpretation of her own life.
Flaws & Fears changes the narrative as an intimate inside looking out account of love’s challenges, marking itself as her most personal EP to date. Yashna bears the double barrel brunt of a past that she is still healing from and the scars of her current love which mesh into a proverbial infected band aid which had to be ripped off so she can treat her wounds.
The album’s overarching theme can be summarized by my favourite poetic balled from the album “Anymore” through the quote “Break my heart/ Was a song I never sang/ But you wrote a melody/ And it stuck in my head”.
Most bodies of work of this nature usually tell one side of the heartbreak story. “Broken” featuring rapper and producer Neo Ndawo goes against the grain with a verse that not only provides the other side of the story but does it with a refreshing tone of accountability.
With a production, sound engineering, and instrumentalist roster consisting of TaylorMade Beatz, Nkululeko Sibisi, Jaedon Daniel, and Neo Ndawo, every contribution to this emotional rollercoaster from songwriting, to the harmonics and vocal arrangement, and pristine sonic clarity was executed with meticulous detail.
Flaws & Fears makes for the perfect traditional R&B addition to Yashna’s genre-bending catalogue. True to her word, she takes us into the draining fight she was prepared to endure for her love and despite the imperfections that come with relationships, a song like “Isn’t It” reminds one of the love’s beauties that makes the hard times worth it.
