Sampha Finds His Peace On 'Lahai'

Time is one of humankind’s most common enemies. In addition to being indiscriminate, it will cut the best moments painfully short and make the worst moments drag out for what seems like eternity. Sampha understands this. He wrestled with the passing of his mother on his debut album Process and reluctantly accepted by the end that she would no longer be with him. Five years later, the U.K. singer returns with Lahai, a decidedly brighter album that puts Sampha in a more hopeful and self-accepting light.

Where Process captured Sampha in the heat of his mourning, Lahai is a more rehabilitative experience. He centers the project around family, much like on his debut, though this time, the 34-year-old is penchant on his emotional recovery and finding himself in a place positive enough to be a guiding light for his young daughter.

Lead single “Spirit 2.0” functions as a spiritual safety net, pleading to the listener that someone or something will catch them even as they’re spiraling through stress and despair. “Waves will catch you / Light will catch you / Love will catch you / Spirit gon’ catch you,” Sampha sings on the hook as the verses tackle how he went about healing when he had nothing left around him. The instrumentals, lush and breezy, feel like open air, as if Sampha is finally releasing himself from the hold depression had caught him in. He even references Richard Bach’s fable of Jonathan Livingston Seagull, which shows the journey of self-acceptance of the titular seagull.

The reference lives on across the album and is most bluntly exemplified on the track named after the bird. The song grapples with healing and travelling as he has to leave the environment most comfortable to him to find purpose again. In his journey, he finds others who share his trauma but don’t articulate or process it in identical ways (“Even though we’ve been through the same / Doesn’t always mean we feel the same”). 

As Sampha battles his way through loneliness and despair to reach his goal of self-acceptance, he finds himself reminiscing on days spent with people who held important places in his life. He clutches onto peaceful moments of dancing with his significant other the delicately produced “Dancing Circles” and laments his dissociation from reality on “Suspended.” Sampha’s sincerity even in his most personal shortcomings paints a clearer picture of his fractured emotions and how, even years removed from a largely traumatic moment, he’s still trying to pick up the pieces. 

As the album progresses it becomes clear Sampha is at odds with waning time. The brief interlude “Time Piece,” sees a woman speaking in French saying, “Time doesn’t exist / A time machine.” The following track “Can’t Go Back” continues the theme with Sampha conceding that no matter how much he wants, he can’t go back in time. With his newfound responsibility for his daughter, he understands that he has to live in the present and prepare for the future, if only for her sake. It’s a mature acknowledgement of time passing and proves that Sampha’s healing and growth are more apparent than he might believe.

As Sampha inches closer to the feeling of self-acceptance and liberation he’d been searching for at the start of the album, he’s still apprehensive of his developing happiness on the penultimate track “What if You Hypnotize Me?” He can’t shake that the feeling of love he yearns for is selfish nor can he consistently remain present due to the memories that still torment him but he’s open to being hypnotized by the subject of the song just to find a semblance of peace in his mind.

Sampha’s fight with time is endless and thankless. Even throughout his plight, he remains hopeful that he can find purpose again in life.

With its glitchy instrumental palette backing it, Lahai is a serene look to the future where Sampha can be at peace with his memories and can raise his family in a positive environment. With so much time lost to grief and mourning, he uses Lahai to convince himself that he has too much of it left to waste.