“deadmanwalking” by Dylan Joshua

Dylan Joshua’s goal is to simply to be grounded: to create R&B/hip-hop tunes that feel tethered to real, everyday concerns and refuse to embellish themselves with overdramatised stories of celebrity glamour and aestheticised suffering.

In his new single “deadmanwalking”, Joshua takes on the thoroughly relatable theme of going back into the world and interacting after a long period of solitude doing the pandemic, examining it with a sense of humbleness that make his themes all the more universal.

Backed by a gentle hum of acoustic guitar and subtly deployed instrumental backing that draws attention to Joshua’s smooth and accessible vocals, the song follows along a path of quietly powerful introspection that forces the listener to look within and recognise how the lyrics apply to their own struggles.

On the song, Joshua says, “With everything back up and everyone coming back outside it feels like a sense of FOMO (fear of missing out) going around and everyone’s kind of trying to make up for the past 2 years, but for anyone who knows what I’m talking about it feels like those 2 years kinda put you behind a screen, watching people live their lives while you kinda just went through the motions, especially back home. Personally, I didn’t really rush back into my social life like that, it’s gonna take me a bit to re-socialize, and I feel like I’ve grown mentally so the same things or people I used to view as fun just don’t appeal to me the same way. When you try to pick up where you left off, and nothing gives you that same rush you used to get, it really does feel like you’re a deadmanwalking.”