PREMIERE: ‘Fxck Love’ a Provocative V-Day Message from Jah Freedom and ANON the Griot

On the track “Acrophobia,” poet Ahmariah Jackson’s rich mellifluous baritone pulls us through a thicket of shivery vibes, prowling bass and skip-a-beat percussion to spin a hair-raising narrative: 

“There is a scene in ‘Forrest Gump’/ Where ‘peas-and-carrots’ Jenny/ Gets so high/ She climbs on a ledge/ And contemplates a jump/ And even at this moment/ My hands moisten and pulse races…” 

“Acrophobia,” a high-wire dissection of the barriers we erect and ultimately overcome to find self-love, is one of 10 cuts on the new album Fxck Love, an emotional and thought-provoking collaboration between eclectic Charlotte producer and composer Geoffrey Edwards, aka Jah Freedom, and Atlanta-based emcee and poet Jackson, who writes and performs as ANON the Griot.

Fittingly released on Valentine’s Day, we’re premiering the album below.

Like the jump that Jenny considers in the famed 1994 film, Fxck Love is a deep dive into the various meanings, permutations and revelations of the emotion that’s purportedly at the heart of the holiday devoted to chocolates, flowers, candy hearts and outrageously expensive dinner dates.

“We talk about love, and it is not just holding hands and skipping in the park,” Jackson says. “That’s not always my experience with love.” 

Produced by Edwards and inspired by Jackson’s personal experiences and relationships, the LP features seven spoken-word tracks that explore themes of longing, romance and the dynamic nature of love set to Edwards’ transcendent soundscapes. 

Three additional “interludes” accompany Edwards’ romantic, psychedelic and cinematic music with phone recordings of the artists’ friends and family leaving messages that share their feelings about love.

“We leaned upon trusted … people who love and appreciate us, and [offered] them that space,” Jackson notes. “So they were able to be their truest and most vulnerable selves.”

It ain’t all bad

When Jackson first heard Jah Freedom’s production work on “Shotgun,” a propulsive 2014 track by South Carolina rapper Dan Johns, the Atlanta poet vowed to work with the Charlotte producer. 

The two artists planned to start working on a project featuring Jackson’s poetry as far back as 2021, but Fxck Love was finally sparked when Jackson fell head over heels with his fiancé Elyse.

“I was smitten like a poet would be,” Jackson says. “A lot of the pieces that are on [Fxck Love] are dedications to her.” 

Jackson’s flux of emotions can be divined on the album cut “Goddess,” a sacred, sensual and erotic hymn in which Edwards’ wavering, decaying piano underpins Jackson’s fine-grained recitative:

“I believe in God because I met her already/ Triple beam balance, she dance around the galaxy steady…”

When it came to composing the musical backing to Jackson’s poetry, Edwards says the words came first. For his composition method, he drew inspiration from previous work like Kahlo, named Best Instrumental Project by Queen City Nerve in 2023. 

For that seven-track album, Edwards imaged what each of seven paintings by Mexican artist Frida Kahlo would sound like.

Read more: Jah Freedom Extols That Which Came Before on ‘Kahlo’

“I wanted to do the same thing with ANON’s poetry,” Edwards says. “Those are his paintings.” 

‘Fxck love’ and all that comes with it

Although Edwards cites musical influences as diverse as Burt Bacharach, Prince, George Clinton, David Bowie, James Brown and Hans Zimmer, he says the composition process for Fxck Love was “100% feeling.”

“Once [I received] a poem, I would sit in my studio and let it play on a loop,” Edwards notes. “After I felt whatever emotion the poem made me feel, I would jump on the piano and doodle out something until it matched the emotion I was feeling.”

That eclectic and intuitive approach also applies to the album’s title.

“We prefaced the word ‘love’ with the expletive because you can use [‘fuck love’] in so many different ways,” Edwards says, noting that the phrase runs the emotional gamut from affection to desire, from comfort to lust. 

“We wanted to explore each one of those things,” Edwards says. 

Currently, Edwards and Jackson plan to share their explorations of Eros live before audiences. Edwards is currently considering venues and putting a band together and aims for Fxck Love Live! to be good to go by summer or fall.

In the meantime, lovers or those who simply love great music can celebrate Valentine’s Day and all the fluctuating, quicksilver emotions the holiday conjures with compositions like the title track of Fxck Love.

Here, Edwards’ traipsing piano, chugging cellos and sprightly swaths of synthesizer converge as Jackson seems to channel the jazz-inspired cadences of Gil Scott-Heron and the dynamic drive and central metaphor of Fela Kuti’s coursing “Water No Get Enemy.”

“Love, much like water/ Has a limitless supply/ But all our salty sentiments/ Bled both basins dry…”

“Water and love are similar in the sense that they are plentiful,” Jackson says. “And because they’re plentiful, they’re often taken for granted. They’re not appreciated.”

“If you cup and cradle water, you can hold it in your hand,” Edwards adds. “But if you try to clench it in your hand like a fist, it falls through.”