It takes a peculiar kind of endurance for Raw Soul to release “Still High…”, an album that acts as a profound dissertation on life, mental health, and the sheer audacity of survival. By day, he is a practicing lawyer in Vancouver; by night, he operates as a fiercely independent hip-hop architect, handling every single step of the writing, mixing, and mastering process himself. He was born in Tripoli, Libya, and you can feel the gravity of multiple lifetimes colliding in his deeply reflective craft.
The sonic landscape is predominantly lo-fi hip-hop, wrapped in an almost aggressive comfort. On “Run Free” and the title track “Still High”, the grooves are warm and cyclical. The beats loop gently beneath vocal deliveries that sound incredibly solitary, as if we are hearing his unedited inner monologue while he navigates city streets at midnight, balancing quiet ambition with the physical necessity of unwinding.
There is an undeniable ache echoing through the center of the tracklist. “In Need (Of Healing)” and “Perseverance” confront internal demons, vulnerability, and the heavy exhaustion of trying to secure peace in an unpredictable world. But rather than spiraling into defeat, Raw Soul anchors himself in empathy. “Lenses” asks for a radical sharing of perspectives, while “I’m Going (Letting Go)” delivers a beautiful, startling realization: the frustrating reality you currently complain about might be the ultimate aspiration for someone else fighting harder battles.
He physically and mentally scales his past traumas on “Skyscrapers”, laying a hypnotic melody over a steady pulse to map his climb from the bottom to stability. Everything feels deeply, almost claustrophobically personal, until the record’s climax. On “To Whom It May Concern”, the lens violently pans outward. Layered over a mournful, classical string loop and gritty boom-bap drums, Raw Soul pivots from personal resilience to a scathing, politically charged indictment of geopolitical corruption and the cyclical violence targeting oppressed populations.
He ultimately promises that despite immense personal and global friction, we will eventually come out the other side shining. It makes you wonder, though: once we finally manage to secure our own peace, what exactly do we owe to the people still trapped in the dark?
