BURN BOTH WAYS
Genre: SPICE-ROUTE FUSION — Anatolian zurna × West African talking drum × Balkan brass (9/8) × dancehall dembow × Indian dhol & tabla × flamenco palmas × trap 808. Humid, spiced, dangerous, danceable.
BURN BOTH WAYS
Genre: SPICE-ROUTE FUSION — Anatolian zurna × West African talking drum × Balkan brass (9/8) × dancehall dembow × Indian dhol & tabla × flamenco palmas × trap 808. Humid, spiced, dangerous, danceable.
Lyrics
Genre: SPICE-ROUTE FUSION — Anatolian zurna × West African talking drum × Balkan brass (9/8) × dancehall dembow × Indian dhol & tabla × flamenco palmas × trap 808. Humid, spiced, dangerous, danceable.
Intro | global bazaar wakes up — a lone Turkish zurna call answered by a West African talking drum, a Bulgarian brass stab cuts in, dembow shuffle creeps under, distant Arabic oud, a chef's knife tapping a board as percussion, smoky and slow
A little taste won't kill you...
that's what they always say.
Verse 1 | half-sung half-rapped, sitar riff over trap 808, palmas claps, sly spice-market swagger, confident
You set the table like a trap — all saffron and red,
Cinnamon on the lips, but there's nightshade in the bread.
I knew the second that I tasted you were trouble on a plate,
Sweet enough to swallow whole, sharp enough to leave a scar that won't fade.
Pre-Chorus | tension rises, dhol roll, zurna bends a microtone, hand-drums climb
So tell me, baby, what's the recipe — honey laced with kerosene?
Every bite's a love letter, every love letter's a guillotine.
Chorus | HUGE polyrhythmic drop — dembow + Balkan brass + 808 at once, chant-able, gang ad-libs from every corner of the map
If I don't eat, it burns me — if I eat, it burns you,
We're the dish nobody finishes, too good and too cruel.
Pass the poison, pour the honey, light the kitchen, let it blaze —
Loving you's a supper that burns both ways. (burns both ways!)
Verse 2 | deeper pocket, flamenco guitar flourish, tabla rolling underneath, chopped East-Asian vocal sample sprinkled like garnish
You're chili in the cocoa, you're a smile inside a knife,
You're the meal I keep on cooking even though it cooks my life.
They warned me at the border — "don't you swallow what she serves" —
But I licked the spoon clean, baby, and I got just what I deserve.
Pre-Chorus | brass answers the zurna, percussion thickens
So tell me, baby, what's the recipe — honey laced with kerosene?
Every bite's a love letter, every love letter's a guillotine.
Chorus | bigger, stacked vocals, brass + dhol slamming the off-beats
If I don't eat, it burns me — if I eat, it burns you,
We're the dish nobody finishes, too good and too cruel.
Pass the poison, pour the honey, light the kitchen, let it blaze —
Loving you's a supper that burns both ways. (burns both ways!)
Bridge | THE SPICE BREAK — drop to bare percussion, breath and hands, a polyglot chant whispered like ingredients tossed in a sizzling pan, then everything explodes back
(whispered, layered, dropped one by one into the pot)
Aşk... amor... ishq... habibi... — taste it, taste it, taste it —
the zurna screams, the brass replies, the whole bazaar ignites,
one more bite, one more bite, one more bite and we both burn tonight!
wave swell — every drum on Earth hits at once
Final Chorus | MAXIMUM — Anatolian, African, Balkan, Indian, Caribbean drums stacked, gang vocals, total catharsis
If I don't eat, it burns me — if I eat, it burns you,
We're the dish nobody finishes, too good and too cruel.
Pass the poison, pour the honey, light the kitchen, let it blaze —
Loving you's a supper that burns both ways! (both ways! both ways!)
Outro | smoke clears, only oud and a fading zurna remain, a single talking-drum heartbeat, breathy and spent
And the plate's still warm... and my mouth's still on fire...
neither full nor empty... neither lower nor higher...
if I don't eat, it burns me... if I eat, it burns you...
so I sit at the table... loving what I'll never chew.