B-Side Guys

The Guyanese national anthem becomes raw material for revolution. OSANI’s “Americas” demonstrates how patriotic hymns can be dismantled and rebuilt as weapons of resistance, transforming ceremonial music into something that actually serves the people it claims to represent. This isn’t respectful homage—it’s deliberate cultural hijacking.

Working entirely from a home studio in Winnipeg, OSANI has created a production that feels both intimate and monumental. Ancestral vocal samples drift through layers of distorted synthesizers while industrial drums provide the kind of relentless backbone that makes standing still impossible. The sonic architecture reflects the track’s conceptual framework: traditional elements get processed through contemporary machinery until they emerge as something entirely new yet unmistakably connected to their origins.

OSANI’s lyrical construction reveals sophisticated understanding of how personal and historical trauma intersect. The repeated “Vaycay” refrain creates ironic tension—vacation imagery contrasted against harsh realities of survival and systemic oppression. Lines connecting historical slavery to contemporary struggle demonstrate how past violence echoes through present circumstances, while references to specific locations like Ellice Avenue ground abstract concepts in lived geography.

The track’s most powerful moments emerge when OSANI shifts between different temporal perspectives, moving from ancestral memory to immediate survival tactics. Personal revelations about near-death experiences and family destruction from addiction create intimate stakes within broader political commentary. “Flowers from the cracks you could never relate” encapsulates the entire project’s ethos—beauty and resistance emerging from conditions designed to prevent both.

The track’s structural choices mirror its political content. Rather than following conventional hip-hop verse-chorus patterns, “Americas” unfolds through accumulating intensity, building momentum like a movement gathering strength. Each section adds new layers of complexity while maintaining the driving force that carries everything forward. The result feels less like a song and more like a manifesto set to rhythm.

What makes “Americas” essential beyond its political content is OSANI’s understanding that effective resistance music must function on multiple levels simultaneously. The track works as personal catharsis, cultural reclamation, and aesthetic statement, proving that consciousness and craft aren’t mutually exclusive. OSANI has created something that serves both the dance floor and the revolution, understanding that sometimes they’re the same space.