When Isiah wrote their part of the Old Testament, by saying “no rest for the wicked”, they meant running a music blog. This lesser-known fact is often omitted in the Bible studies, but it is essentially true. Just this morning we were summarizing the past year at Indieterria (11.5K readers – thank you so much), while in the afternoon we are already beginning coverage of new releases for 2024. Not even a second to catch a breather!
But it is always a pleasure to review new material from Jade the Nightmare so I won’t complain. And we begin the new year with excellent, trip hop influenced “Sekhmet”.
single cover
If this is your first-time hearing about Jade the Nightmare, let me quickly fill you in. Behind the hellish presence, you have a very young Black female artist (she is in her mid-20s), who using her gargantuan work ethic and talents, rightfully achieved a cult status among the fans of underground music in the US. Coming from Denver, Jade started out rapping at just eleven years old. Hobby soon turned into a form of therapy as Jade lost her father and then another family member shortly after. By 2015, Jade the Nightmare was born: Hell-Woman, succubus and a demon with power over human dreams, who would tell her hair-raising misadventures in the mortal realm through a mix of rap, metal and horrorcore. Drawing inspiration from alternative cultures and music for outcasts, Jade started building her career. To date she self-released over 150 singles, 7 albums, a split EP, created her own company (Death Delight Creations Inc), her own label (GothHop Empire Ent) and she collaborated with over 50 musicians and producers worldwide.
Like other artists in the horrorcore genre, Jade uses dark images and paranormal themes in her lyrics to comment on serious and real ailments of society: murder, poverty or racism.
Her art speaks from a perspective of a woman and often references mythical, spiritual and historical female figures as a means of shifting focus from the male dominated views.
Without going into banalities or clichés, what Jade is doing is still sadly quite solitary. Music made by women, even on independent circuits, is sidetracked and treated as a hobby. Voices of women of colour are scarce. It changes with the likes of Cinnamon Babe or Alt Blk Era but we still have such a long way to go.
In the Egyptian pantheon Sekhmet was one of three immortal warrior goddesses (alongside Bastet and Hator) acting as “The Eye of Ra”, protectors and avengers of the Sun God. All are depicted as large cats – usually lions, panthers and jaguars. They were said to be vengeful, fluent in the art of war and combat, able to bring plague and death, but also cure any illness. When she was on a hunt, Sekhmet did not stop easily. There is a myth that other Egyptian gods had to create a sea of beer coloured with red ochre (to look like blood) to get the goddess drunk and calmed down. Only after that Sekhmet stopped the slaughter and returned home. The cult of all three goddesses was so strong that many artefacts in museum collections around the world represent them rather than their male counterparts.
There is little surprise that Jade the Nightmare would invoke such a powerful deity in her new song. Looking from a modern angle, “The Eye of Ra” is a sisterhood of influential women: mothers, daughters, consorts. They are not just appointed by Ra, the Sun God. They are him, in a feminine way, equal yet far more powerful. Ra was known to offer forgiveness. His female incarnations wouldn’t bother.
Some readers at this point may be sitting here, grinding their teeth and calling this review crap. I was supposed to review a song, not give a lecture in gender studies. If my `wokeism` hurt your precious feelings, then please let me drive this fact home. You can`t speak about Jade`s new song without acknowledging what she speaks about. Feminist mythology wasn’t in Egypt just for decoration. Neither is feminism a modern construct invented by the West.
Jade the Nightmare by visual artist Fletcher Bennett
Hundreds of years before the birth of democracy in Athens and female soldiers of Sparta, it was ancient Egypt that invented female empowerment. Women of ancient Egypt enjoyed more rights than women in many Western countries do nowadays (we are looking at you Florida, Alabama and Texas). They owned property, presented themselves in court, owned businesses and could divorce on a whim. They ran hospitals and fertility clinics (including those that provided abortions), were participants in temples and operated diplomatic posts. Over time all the freedoms women enjoyed were taken away – a huge chunk of it due to conquest, colonialist rule and imported criminal codes. Do you wonder that local females (among them Huda Sha’arawi and Malak Hifni Nasif) were at the forefront of the fight against British rule and that Egypt has the oldest feminist organisation in the Arab world (Arab Women’s Solidarity Association (AWSA).
That fighting spirit is at the heart of what constitutes “Sekhmet” such a powerful release. I have mentioned that it is trip hop inspired with its mesmerizing samples of Egyptian sounds and what can only be described as ambient undertones. It is Jade`s return to rap after exploring black metal for the past year. However, Jade is not giving up genre bending that easily. There is still enough darkness for any metal fan to take delight in. There’s enough beats and samples for any horrorcore listener to nod their head in approval. But it’s the background layers that are properly mind blowing. If you remove the vocals, “Sekhmet” could easily be Sven Vath`s production or Ampex Twin deep cut from “Further Down the Spiral”. At the very core this single is closer to Nine Inch Nails that you`d give it credit for.
Jade the Nightmare – photo by Higher Transcendental
Jade the Nightmare is a proficient guitar player, not just a vocalist and alternative rock is as much influence here as metal or electronic music. It`s a dark rap/trap three minutes long masterpiece.
You can interpret “Sekhmet” in so many ways, even lyrically. It can be a confession of the powerful ancient goddess who is furious at chipping away her rights. It can be a succubus or a demon playing with a mortal (to keep in character with artist`s stage persona), it can be a BDSM session in full swing where a man pays a dominatrix to mangle him a bit. But I don’t think many people realize what Jade is putting in here on display.
If you are into horror and occult, then this song is going to scare and thrill you at the same time. It`s spooky and violent and erotic. Jade the Nightmare as a demon is perfect for The X Files reboot. Just imagine new generation Mulder and Scully chasing after her and most likely being outsmarted by the hellish spirit. But put away the paranormal and think of “Sekhmet” as a social commentary. Society went from worshipping women as goddesses to femicide. In developed countries like the UK, every week two or three women are murdered by their partners. Rape convictions are at 1% (no, I am not kid you not), violence against sex workers skyrocketed since the pandemic, women are forced into sex labour as cost of living crisis means rise in rent and food prices. These are all very actual problems that women face and no government is truly interested in finding a solution. Please tell me that it doesn’t just beg for a bloody rampage of Sekhmet.
I enjoy the music as it is, but I like to look at it from a feminist perspective. And it gives me such a pleasure to discover so much to sink my teeth into with every release from Jade the Nightmare. She deserves to be discovered by a wider public. Just imagine what dark delights would be unleashed for us all.
You can follow Jade on the socials:
https://www.jadethenightmare.com/
https://www.facebook.com/jadethenightmare/
https://twitter.com/jadethenightmre
https://www.instagram.com/jadethenightmare666/
https://www.youtube.com/@OfficialJadeTheNightmareMusic
https://www.tiktok.com/@jadethenightmare
https://jadethenightmare.bandcamp.com/
https://soundcloud.com/jadethenightmare
https://open.spotify.com/artist/1XgEef1F67Q88BMIFPNtes
Malicia Dabrowicz
Indieterria 