Try / Mess

This track operates as two movements that exist in productive friction with each other — the first reaching, extending, making an effort; the second acknowledging the inevitable disorder that follows any genuine attempt. The production is more fractured and angular than much of Obongjayar's catalog, with rhythmic interruptions and textural abrasiveness that mirror the emotional content: trying is inherently messy, and the song refuses to smooth that over. His vocals shift between controlled authority and something rawer, less contained, as if the performance itself is enacting the tension between intention and outcome. There's a political undercurrent running through the song's insistence — the idea that effort under adverse conditions is itself a form of resistance, even when the result is chaos. It sits within the tradition of Afrobeat and afro-soul but processes those influences through a very contemporary British lens, alert to how systemic pressures deform individual effort. The arrangement has edges that catch rather than glide, which is the point: some music is designed to comfort, and this is designed to clarify. You reach for it when you need something that refuses to lie to you about how difficult things actually are.