Arno Faraji has announced that his debut mixtape, RETURN TO RAJI, will arrive in November. To coincide, the rapper has shared new single ‘Black Sunday’, a vulnerable and meditative cut that pairs introspective lyricism with a free-flowing, piano-led instrumental and triumphant horns.
“‘Black Sunday’ is a track that had me reflecting and thinking about identity, specifically how I came to be,” Faraji said in a statement. “Within that reflection, I also thought about ‘placement’, I thought about growing up out here in Australia with my native cultural context, getting into music and art as more than a hobby and feeling the pressures of how that’s looked at in some POC migrant families.”
Arno Faraji – ‘Black Sunday’
Faraji, who’s of Zimbabwean background, continued: “There’s this pressure on traditional academia and getting into good schools to have traditionally good jobs and get good money, which is meant to translate to better lives and more generational wealth, which is actually a dope end goal, but I feel like the view of the road to get there is so strict and folks feel like you can only get there or achieve a better life only by those means.”
Faraji said he almost conformed to this expectation after finishing school, but only out “fear of the unknown”. He now feels vindicated for having taken a different path. “I almost didn’t get to do a lot of the things I’m grateful to be doing now,” he said.
Set to arrive on Friday, 18th November via The Orchard, RETURN TO FARAJI‘s tracklist will include ‘Black Sunday’ along with previously-released singles ‘Gravity’ and ‘On the Move’. It will follow a long string of standalone singles from the genre-flexible rapper, plus collaborations with the likes of Kwame, REMI, Just a Gent, Two Another and more.
In an accompanying statement, Faraji described the mixtape as “a collection of tracks from the vault that also act as a window into my life/perspectives I’ve had over the past few years.”
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