Zambian-Canadian rapper and producer Backxwash — aka Ashanti Mutinta — will release her new album, Only Dust Remains, on March 28 via Ugly Hag (her own label). It comes on the heels of her acclaimed triptych of albums God Has Nothing to Do With This Leave Him Out of It (2020), I Lie Here Buried With My Rings and My Dresses (2021), and His Happiness Shall Come First Even Though We Are Suffering (2022).
Her work finds common threads across a range of topics, including faith, identify, and queerness. She explores these ideas through the lens of an experimental hip-hop ideology, dismantling our expectations of the genre and offering a scorched earth approach in how she perceives the world around her. Only Dust Remains is a testament to her ability to evolve as an artist, documenting the boundless variance between light and shadow, between life and death, with these beginnings and endings revealing themselves simultaneously.
But finally, there is also hope, even if it only just manages to break through the darkness surrounding us everyday. Anger, frustration, mourning, the half-life of our existence — it’s all examined through a perspective that refuses to be labelled or boxed into a single musical landscape. It’s always been a wild ride with Backxwash, and there’s no reason to doubt that she’ll continue to challenge the status quo in unpredictable ways.
She released a (seemingly) standalone single called “Wake Up” back in April of last year, but it now stands as our first glimpse into this new collection. If you didn’t check it out when it was first shared, listen to it below. Here’s hoping we hear more of the new album soon.
Only Dust Remains is due out March 28 via Ugly Hag. You can follow Backxwash on Facebook, X, and Instagram.
