In the frenzy of this past Friday's musical drop - which included Chris Brown's Indigo and Mustard's Perfect Ten - Toronto singer, Daniel Caesar delivers his anticipated CASE STUDY 01. After dropping his first, deeply raw, mixtape, Freudian, back in 2017, the young musician cemented a name for himself as one of R&B's most promising poets. The effortless way in which he weaves complex and existential themes throughout his (seemingly) simple love songs, has earned him mainstream success, as well as the distinction he deserves. Now, his follow-up album provides us with even denser and riskier confronting ideas, like the battle between good and evil, life and death, loneliness, and God.
On this impossibly beautiful track, Caesar employs John Mayer's epic guitar skills to help him continue Case Study 01’s theme of science as a lens to explore and attempt to better understand the complicated and chaotic nature of life and relationships. He introduces the marvel of superposition; a phenomenon where two distinct waves (sound, water, etc.) cross paths and make one bigger wave, cancel each other out, or (as they often do) both. The title is a metaphor for the concept of Yin and Yang that this song rests upon. Daniel acknowledges himself as his own person while also recognizing all the things that he both influences, and is influenced by – implying the interconnection of everything. This is highlighted clearly in his Yin yang imagery and his statement that he is not just himself, but everything.
Quotable Lyrics:
Exist in superposition
Life's all about contradiction
Yin and yang
Fluidity and things
I'm me, I'm God
I'm everything
I'm my own reason why I sing
And so are you, are you understanding?