Seema Farswani’s single, ‘Got My Mojo Working’ featuring Dem-C, has been looping in my head, and it feels less like a track and more like a beautifully vexing predicament set to a very groovy beat. The premise is so disarmingly human, isn’t it? This notion of possessing a potent personal magnetism, a kind of everyday folk magic that bends the world just so, only for it to utterly fizzle when aimed at the one stubborn individual you desperately wish to enchant. It’s the cosmic equivalent of a master illusionist whose grandest vanishing act somehow leaves only them, bewildered, on an empty stage.
Farswani, whose artistry has journeyed from Dubai through the U.S. to Singapore, weaves this wonderfully global sensibility into the music. The bluesy bedrock is undeniable, providing a familiar ache, yet it’s intricately threaded with bright pop sensibilities and these captivating, almost bittersweet Middle Eastern melodic inflections. Her voice carries a delicious bewilderment, a sort of “excuse me, universe, this part of the script usually works” pout that’s entirely charming. It makes me think, oddly, of the particular shimmer on a scarab beetle’s wing – beautiful, protective, yet perhaps not universally alluring.
Then there’s Dem-C’s beatboxing, which slips in not as mere percussive dressing but more like the frantic, internal rhythm of the mojo itself, trying to cold-start its faltering engine. Or maybe it’s the sound of an anxious heart, thrumming a little too loudly while waiting for a sign that, alas, never comes.
The song captures that peculiar brand of powerful impotence, the humbling thud when your tried-and-true charisma hits an unyielding wall of indifference. It’s the feeling of having brewed your most potent charm potion, only to find your target has an unexpected immunity. Yet, there’s no wallowing here; instead, there’s a playful, almost exasperated determination to perhaps consult a more esoteric manual, to amplify the signal.
What lingers isn’t sadness, but a wry, knowing nod to life’s unpredictable resistances. When even your best juju fails you on a specific someone, what new enchantment do you dare to conjure next?
