If 2017’s Rose Gold had R&B-pop maverick Shekhinah looking at her world through rose-colored glasses, then her blinders are officially off on 2021’s Trouble in Paradise. “I was beginning to realize that now, as an adult, things were becoming more serious and problems were becoming more real and more painful, which is what this is all about,” she tells Apple Music. Four years after the release of her debut album, which signaled a new age of South African pop and inspired a new wave of alternative R&B artists, the singer-songwriter’s personal growth and struggles anchor a defiant follow-up, underpinned by the work of her producer, engineer, and road manager, Goofy.
“This album was definitely impacted by COVID-19 in a positive way,” Shekhinah explains. “It kind of forced me to reconnect with being in studio. I think I was just really focused on doing shows, building Rosefest [the women’s empowerment festival she founded], and making an income. I was really avoiding the studio, and I think COVID-19 just quieted everything down so that I could [develop] tunnel vision [for] studio.” Here, she talks us through 12 tracks that smack of the hard life lessons she’s learned while quietly doing the work of becoming her own best friend.
Tides
“‘Tides’ has the same energy as ‘Back to the Beach’ [her 2016 single with Kyle Deutsch]. Every time I have a hard time in Joburg and [retreat] back to my home in Durban, I spend time on the beach, and I always reflect. Even in music videos, I’m with all of my old friends on the beach in Durbs. In the opening lines, it’s, ‘Open up to me, like the sea/I can see, life’s a beach/Karma coming, to my knees, on repeat.’ The ocean helps me understand everything that I’m going through. It’s similar to how a mountain makes me feel; I can go for a hike one week and climb the mountain very positively. But then the next week, when I’m feeling down, the mountain is more difficult to climb, even though it’s something that I’ve climbed before. Nature always helps me contextualize what’s happening in my real world.”
Not Safe (intro)
“This intro explains how everything became so weird and gloomy in my life. I felt like I was holding so many people’s hands, and it got to the point where I couldn’t actually hold anyone’s hand anymore. I had to hold my own hand. And all of a sudden, I felt that being alone, I wasn’t safe. I moved to a bigger complex with more security and more neighbors. [But] I became very fearful the more alone I got, which is why it’s called ‘Not Safe.’ I just felt like I’m not safe [being] alone. And I think a lot of people felt that way also in 2020, being in quarantine: What do we do without human interaction?”
Miserable
“Goofy and I have done a lot of things together. I love being in studio with him. Goofy is someone that I’ve grown up with in the industry. And we wanted to do the second album together again because we did Rose Gold together. But I think, after this, we’ll both explore other things independently of one another.”
Fixate (feat. Bey T)
“I met [Kenyan singer] Bey T at Mr Eazi’s emPawa workshop in Stellenbosch. She’s super cool, and super new school. I just really enjoy her flow—everything’s very easy—and I really wanted to work with her. When she came over [to South Africa], I had just gotten vocal surgery, so I couldn’t talk to her. I was writing everything down. I was like, ‘Nice verse. Well done.’ I also love working with anybody from Kenya because they support my music so much, and I just also want them to know that I support their artists too.”
Questions
“‘Questions’ speaks about falling in love with your best friend and the risks that come with it. You lose a friendship, you lose trust—I went through so many different things. This album is not centered around one breakup or one friendship; it’s a combination of things that have happened over a period of time. But one of those things was falling in love with my best friend and then just asking yourself the question, ‘Do we explore this? Don’t we explore [this]? What happens if you drop my heart and it falls too hard, and you just can’t put it back?’”
Fall Apart (feat. Luke Goliath)
“I want people to know that it’s OK for things to fall apart. I feel like these experiences need to happen in order to be inspired, unfortunately. I went through a lot of breakups making this album, which was helpful, because I think I would forget what it was like to be heartbroken and then, oops, my heart would get broken again. Breakups make you feel lost because you find so much of your identity in the other person. And it’s really like trying to figure out who you are and learn that all over again. But also, I lost a lot of cool friends that I thought would be in my life forever. So, this song is just really about being OK with having things fall apart.”
Pick Up (feat. Una Rams)
“I get sent a lot of beats and sometimes I just listen and fall in love, which is what happened with this one. It’s by Megahertz, and it’s super old-school. When I’m bored, I go through my inbox, and sometimes there are some beats that really just pull me and I’m instantly inspired. And I love those moments because those are honestly when the best things happen!”
Insecure
“I struggled to work on ‘Insecure’ because, I think, I’m still working on those emotions, because every song was like therapy to me. I’m trying to figure out how I feel, and that sometimes takes a while when you don’t have a professional in the room. I want to let people know that even people you think are not insecure are also insecure. And there are many things that I’ve tried to do to mask my insecurity—money has been a big factor—but nothing has worked. There’s also a time where you feel like you’re your only friend. In all honesty, I couldn’t have gotten through making this album without my friends, but there are some things you just have to go through alone and some mountains you just can’t climb with somebody else. So, it was like that for me on this song. And whatever space I was in that time when I wrote the song, it was like, ‘It’s just me and me. We just have to get through this, just the two of us.’”
Diamonds Do (interlude)
“I first started writing the song about my grills. Once, a guy said to me, ‘Yeah, I know when you wear your grills, you’re on top—you’re in a good mood, you’re in a good space.’ When I wear my grills, I just feel like a baddie; I feel like a bad b**ch. I wasn’t able to contextualize that well enough in song, but in my mind, I was like, ‘Well, these diamonds in my teeth just make me feel super cool.’ But then I realized that diamonds actually do things to girls. ‘Diamonds are a girl’s best friend’ is not a lie. We all want to be married. We all want to get engaged. We all want someone to pop the question and to take that step. And I feel like, ‘Look what diamonds do! Diamonds make you a wife, they give you a title.’ So, it came from a very angry place, but it was just like, I don’t want anything else but a diamond. I don't want anything else from any guy or any friend but a lifelong commitment, which a diamond signifies. Give me diamonds or let’s not do this.”
Wedding Song
“When I wrote ‘Wedding Song’ I was in a relationship, and that’s why the lyrics are so endearing, because I felt like my partner trusted me so much. I say, ‘In all honesty/Rest your heart in me/With nothing but a feeling,’ because you really don’t know what anyone will do to you when you open up to them. You don’t know what will happen, but it was just this feeling—you like someone, so you go in and you trust. I appreciate that. When somebody is willing to be your partner or marry you, they rest their heart in you.”
I Love It Here
“This song is for my girls. We had so much fun growing up and I was so lucky to have Manana help me write the song, because I was just at the end of the road with trying to contextualize how I feel. This basically talks about Fridays. Friday after school was so weird because we were in an all-girls school. So, when the bell rings, we’d all be outside putting on makeup and planning our weekend. I always used to drink the alcohol at my parents’ house and refill it with cheap alcohol. It was just so bad. I remember, I put Smirnoff Spin in a Cîroc bottle. And no one at my house drank—the Cîroc was a gifted bottle—so no one knew or could taste the difference. But it was Smirnoff, instead of Cîroc.”
Beautiful
“I feel like a lot of girls, including myself, forget to tell ourselves that we’re beautiful and we expect someone else to tell us that we’re beautiful all the time. And I think I just came to that realization that I never told myself I was beautiful in the times that I needed to. I only told myself I was beautiful when everyone else was telling me I was beautiful, or I was on the cover of a magazine or something. But I was at my lowest points, I kind of just also kicked myself, which is what also stemmed [the lyric] ‘Team player,’ because I realized I wasn’t actually on my team in times that it counted. So, ‘Beautiful’ was basically just realizing that I would look for compliments in everyone else and look for love in everyone else besides myself. That’s why I say, ‘Why do you seek when you know what you need?/Why do you lie to yourself and believe that love is alive in the ones who leave?’ But then I realized that love is not alive in the people that leave. Love is alive inside of me.”