Art Tawanghar’s “Divine Addiction” features vocalist Shahin Rashidi, who is described on its YouTube video for it as an “World/Middle Eastern/EDM/Folk/Electronics/DownTempo/Trap/Chillout/New Age/Jazz Fusion Composer/Singer/Producer.” Now that’s a lot of hyphens! This ‘divine addiction’ song was (at least partially) inspired by a Rumi poem, which states in part: “Because of your love I have lost my sobriety I am intoxicated by the madness of love.” However, when the song is translated from Farsi to English, it’s not as happy as the title makes it sound.
Vocalist Rashidi tells us about being “so drunk, that I forget my pains.” Rumi suggested being intoxicated by another human, but this Tawanghar song also speaks to the escapism that comes from drunkenness. The song’s video features an acrobat performing out in a forest, as well as other beautiful, slow motion women. These visuals can be, indeed, intoxicating. In fact, these sexy women likely suggest lust, much more than love. Then again, when one is overcome by another, terms like ‘lust” and ‘love’ become blurred and nearly interchangeable, until one doesn’t even know where one of these terms begins, and the other ends. It’s like being inebriated, where time seems to stand still, and reality is an indefinable term. It can all be messy and overpowering.
Sonically, this song might best be described as a slow jam dance track. Rashidi sings it beautifully throughout, and then whispers some of its lyrics toward the end. It starts off slowly, and traditional sounding, before its trap groove fully kicks in. The visuals switch between nature scenes and city settings. There is also a clip of one hand reaching out to another, maybe to help us visualize what it’s like to touch the divine. Of course, there are also instances of revelers dancing in a club, as well as a bartender pouring drinks.
The term ‘divine addiction’ is a bit of a tricky one. It may strike you as an oxymoron. Addiction is nearly always a pejorative term. If you mention addiction in polite company, someone may respond with, ‘Well, there’s a program for that.’ There are programs to help people become unaddicted to everything from cigarettes to alcohol. Would the divine really want us to become addicted – to anything? Certainly, romantic attractions can feel like addiction, but actual addiction means we are no longer in control. Nobody ever wants to be out of control.
One suspects the artist here is attempting to find the proper analogy for this obsession, and not trying to promote addiction. Then again, addiction to the divine can be a positive position. There are worse things to be addicted to than the divine. But we digress.
Info – https://majorhitrecords.com/best-persian-trap-divine-addiction-ft-shahin-rashidi
That intersection where divinity and romance meet has always played a huge part in music. Finding true romance can feel like the closest thing on Earth to the divine. Belinda Carlisle famously sang about how heaven is a place on Earth, in a song of the same name, and is just one example of how heaven and romance can sometimes become nearly indistinguishable. With “Divine Addiction,” Art Tawanghar beautifully continues the exploration of this spiritual paradox.
-Dan MacIntosh
