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Music

Kissey Removes Her Organs In "I Don't Need Anything" Cause She Really Doesn't Need Anything

"You can even take my songs, my blood, my night times, all my hard times, all my drops of sweat that I've worked hard for—you still can't take me."

"Take my blood, take my sweat, take my heart, take my body… I don't need anything," goes the first line of Kissey's "I Don't Need Anything," an ode to the power of self-sufficiency. The Stockholm-born singer and producer, who is now based in New York, tells THUMP that she wrote this song after strolling around the East Village, trying to "figure out some stuff I had to solve and deal with." Suddenly, she had a liberating realization: "no matter what anyone tries to do to suffocate a thought, to force people to see it their way, they simply can't unless you willingly give up that power."

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The message of "I Don't Need Anything" is therefore: "You can even take my songs, my blood, my night times, all my hard times, all my drops of sweat that I've worked hard for—you still can't take me. Everyone's thoughts, values, and dreams will resonate and live forever without us here."

The accompanying video, directed by her frequent collaborator Kamau Agyeman, is a literal interpretation of this idea. Filmed on an iPhone in New York's Astoria neighborhood, it follows Kissey returning home and unloading everything that she doesn't need anymore—including her own organs.

"Even if you take my physical heart, I can't feed myself, I don't have a roof over my head, the 'me' can never be hushed down," she concludes.

Kissey's The Awakening EP is out now on KISSKISS Records

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