#Merky

[welcometololaland]

Good morning Lola!! some questions to distract you during your dry needling. Now I see you’re a big traveler, what is your favourite meal you’ve eaten overseas? also! your answer about gang signs & prayer has given me so much nostalgia omg! I listened to that album on my train to and from uni constantly, and now everytime I hear songs from it it just reminds me of that time in my life, so I want to know you’re favourite songs or lyrics from it? and as a fellow cds in the car gal, what’s the first album your remember buying? and your fave to listen to in the car lately?

good morning! thanks for the ask! the needles are out and i am hobbling around because my quads are SO tight - the physio: 'oooh this is a good one' me: 'this fucking sucks actually'.

my favourite overseas meal - not sure exactly, but probably something i ate in vietnam or thailand. i had some truly incredible meals over there and SO cheap too. 309428/10 would go back for food alone (but also other reasons).

stormz giving us so much life! my favourite song is prob mr skeng for the vibes, but i also first things first, cold and cigarettes and cush (kehlani and lily allen 😭) the lyric that always gets me is the 'you was fighting with your girl when i was fighting my depression' just before the pause because it hits. but i just saw stormzy at laneway and let me tell you the energy in vossi bop for 'i could never die, i'm chuck norris / fuck the government and fuck boris' was high key haha. also, i'm not sure if you've heard one take freestyle - that song is so random but it's one of my favourites of his!

my very first album was on TAPE (that's how old i am - it was britney's baby one more time). my first CD was s club 7 - bring it all back. what was yours?

thanks for the ask!

[underachievers-please-try-harder]

Track of the day // Stormzy - Toxic Trait ft. Fredo

[wyattvsmusic]

Stormzy - This Is What I Mean ALBUM REVIEW

2019’s Heavy Is The Head further solidified that Stormzy is an all time great in the UK music scene. Three years and a whole pandemic later, he has remained pretty quiet since his last album, until September when he released Mel Made Me Do It, a 7-minute banger with one hell of a music video where Stormzy spits some of the best bars of his entire career. It is the ultimate return song. Based on that song, the first song that he released since 2019, one would naturally assume that the song is only a taste of what is to come for his third album. In fact, it ended up being the exact opposite. Stormzy is a rapper but he has been singing since his first album on songs like Blinded By Your Grace, Crown, Do Better, and Don’t Forget To Breathe. When he released Hide & Seek, the lead single to his third album, This Is What I Mean, I wasn’t totally shocked. It’s a sweet love song with some beautiful chords and a nice  afrobeats groove from P2J and still had me excited for the album. By the time Firebabe was released, I knew Stormzy was going full send into a singing-heavy album, which I was intrigued by. Stormzy has a good singing voice and I like all of his singing songs but I wasn’t totally sure if he could carry a whole album like this. Firebabe made me very excited because that song is absolutely beautiful. It’s an even better love song than Hide & Seek. The very minimal instrumentation on the song allows Stormzy to be at his most personal and transparent, leaving nothing to hide behind and showing his most genuine emotions. That is essentially what This Is What I Mean is—an art piece about Stormzy revealing who he really is, which is a man who finds fulfillment in love, faith, and uplifting black voices. Stormzy sings a lot on this album, but raps too, but not the Big For Your Boots style of bars that we know him for. The songs are slow, stripped back, and emotional. The album starts with Fire + Water, an absolutely stunning 8-minute song. It’s slow and full of passion and I love the hook that Stormzy sings, which is hard not to sing along to after learning the words. Sampha provides some nice backing vocals and the song completely transforms once the drums come in around 4 minutes in. I love the beat change around 6 minutes with the nice vocal refrain from Jacob Collier. Stormzy has always been forward with his faith but this album is the closest he’s gone to making gospel (with the exception of Blinded By Your Grace). There seems to be a theme of water and giving what he can back to the water. The natural source we need to live is one with how he feels about God. No matter what he goes through, his faith will carry him through it, whether it’s heartbreak or happiness. The theme of water is most present on the opening Fire + Water, as well as the album’s closer, Give It To The Water. The song features a show-stealing performance from Debbie Ehirim, who really drives Stormzy’s devotion to God home. She sings, This water keeps me floatin' when I'm straight / This water's gonna tell me, ‘It's okay’ / It's flowin' and it's showin' me the way.” There is also the song Holy Spirit which is all about how Stormzy turns to God in times of turbulence. Songs like  Please show Stormzy at his most transparent, as he asks God to guide him through tough experiences in his life, such as hard moments as a famous person or trying to mend his relationship with his father. Sampha’s reprise of the song later on in the album is quite amazing album as well. The other main theme of the album is about love, whether it’s Stormzy expressing how much he loves someone, or how much he wants someone he loves to take him back. The aforementioned Hide & Seek and Firebabe are sweet love songs that express the former whereas songs like Bad Blood express the latter. It’s the ultimate take me back song as Stormzy bares his emotions on the song for the women he loves, which can be implied that he is referring to his ex Maya Jama, who he previously sang about on Lessons. He talks about how much he loves her and even if they don’t end up together, he is still grateful of the time they spent together. He raps, “It still cuts deep but it’s mad love / ‘Cause when you had it that good, it’s never bad blood.” Nao also contributes vocals to the song, which is great but also kinda funny because she also has a song called Bad Blood. If someone wrote a song about me that was this amazing, it would be hard for me not to take them back. Some songs are heavier than others. The song I Got Smile Back is particularly uplifting as Stormzy reminisces on his journey. He raps about the work he put in, his relationships with his families and his peers, as well as his relationship with materialism and how expensive things are no longer what validates his success and happiness. In his second verse, he personifies different emotions and talks about his relationship with them, similar to what Dave did on Voices, who Stormzy also shouts on earlier in the song. He raps, “Me and loneliness kick it from time to time / She knows the deal, that I ain't hers and she ain't mine / Me and joy got tighter, that was overdue / Paranoia doesn't shout me, but I know the truth. “India.Arie appears on the song and still sounds amazing. Almost every song on this album is very emotional and on the slower end of things, with a lot of singing and slow, reflective rapping from Stormzy. Then there is the title track of the album, which is the only hard-hitting song on the album. It’s the second song on the album, which changes the vibe of the album immediately after Fire + Water. It sounds like the grand braggadocios intros that we’re used to from Stormzy. The production is very layered and when the beat drums, it hits hard as fuck. Stormzy raps in a Vossi Bop style the way he flexes on the song. There’s a lot going on in this song; Ms Banks spits a few bars, Amaarae sings a quick bridge, and Black Sherif steals the show at the end. The song is quite powerful and sounds very much like an exciting album opener but has very little correlation with the rest of the album. While it doesn’t totally fit with the rest of the album, it is still one of the best songs on the album and it makes sense for Fire + Water to open the album instead as it sets the album’s tone more accurately. Stormzy may be one of the best rappers, but he has always shown that he can do so much more than that and really doubles down on it with this album. He might lose some of his grime purist fans with this album if he hasn’t lost them already but this album is a true work of art.

Fav Tracks: Fire + Water, This Is What I Mean, Firebabe, My Presidents Are Black, Bad Blood, I Got My Smile Back

[ryllen]

i thought / m a n / these girls are quite heartless 🤣 when i accepted the quest at /clearly/ inconvenient time to swim & dive

[artbyxero]

[megidoreyn]

⚡️THUNDER REIGN (Merkabah-Jonathan doodle) Thunder Reign is probably one of my favorite attacks from his skills/kit!!! Only because the name sounds cool LOL

⚡️twitter

[mantegato]

chances are low but if you see this and you've EVER so much as sketched shadarre (my shadow kougra) or any of my other pets for that matter and u happen to still have it pleaaaassseeee send me it just in case i dont have it

[moneyisnobject]

"Symbiosis"

Kurt Merki Jr

[louisupdates]

Louis Tomlinson congratulates Stormzy on the Merky Football Club headquarters in Croydon. [4.5.2024]

[sumiz-troll-dump]

heres all the colored troll stuff I've made since i took a lets say break instead of "forgot i had a blog"

plus some assorted requests + fanart for a webomic

[downthetubes]

Upcoming comic artist Denzell Dankwah guest at Cheltenham’s Fine Lines Illustration and Animation Festival

Cheltenham’s upcoming Fine Lines Illustration and Animation Festival, taking place Saturday 27th April, is a great opportunity to find out more about being an illustrator, designer or animator

[barxism]

I had two sleepy little guys on me last night

[heroftruth]

Im off to bed but I hear we are making old rwby muses ocs. Pyrrha my beloved i should give her a pokemon verse.

[metamorphmigus]

Attack number 6! This is Bunyip, a swampy Cryptid owned by EyesoreLabs who is over on Deviant art. What a cute lad.

[lovecoreclownz-archive]

I forgot if you said DMs or Asks for the RSVP, but I'd love to join the mutuals server if you do end up making one!

HELLA! Asks and dms are fine! Either is ok with me, but I'm working on the server rn, I've just got a lot of bots and such to figure out yknow? It's been a couple years since I've made a server and discord has updated a good bit since

[kurayamineko]

May-Bee - HELLO HERO