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[iamthesimone]

My Relationship With ‘Reality Check’ by Swae Lee

I’m going to be real here, I wasn’t initially grabbed by Swae Lee’s recent release of ‘Reality Check’, and seeing from my previous blog posts, y’all know I’m a massive fan of him.

Since late 2019, Lee has been teasing fans with songs to be featured on his upcoming album. Some of them I absolutely adore, but others I weren’t feeling as much. One of them was indeed ‘Reality Check’.

I don’t know why I wasn’t fond of it. It’s lovely tune, but maybe it’s because of how different it is to previous songs of his, causing me to not really be used to the sound. The vibes were perfect, the vocals were perfect, but my personal connection with the song just wasn’t clicking. But recently, it hit me.

I had my own ‘reality check’, indeed I did. From that, I felt the sudden urge to listen to the song to hear his words.

With me being of a young age, I haven’t really experienced much, leading me not to come across reality checks that often. During this colossal period of lockdown especially, everything has remained relatively chilled for me; every day has been the same, so nothing could go wrong, nothing could change. But my content-ness changed drastically as I returned to college on the 3rd September, despite Covid-19 numbers scooping up its rates in my age bracket.

My first week saw almost everything the same as the previous year; the classes, the teachers, the expected content. Everything didn’t appear a wild shock to me - except for my first class with a new teacher, which automatically turned everything on its head. 

It was a disaster! Considering me not remembering a strong amount of that subject’s content from the previous year, bringing up unexpected content overwhelmingly defeated me. He seemed to favour a class dynamic which expected us students to remember everything from around six months prior, causing him to pick on us for answers any time his heart desired.

‘What did I do?’ You may ask. I panicked like crazy, that’s what I did! This class automatically became the first to push me near the tipping point, reminding me of my weaker points in study knowledge. This only happened shortly after a previous class I had in another subject, where I realised that I hadn’t picked up the class content as quick as my peers, who were practically flying with their well-earned knowledge, letting words roll out of their mouth as if they were a talking textbook.

As soon as I finished these classes and went home, I was completely defeated. How could this have happened to me? Everything had been so perfect for my mental stability these past few months…and now this happens? Honestly, I felt like the least educated student in the class who didn’t know what on earth was going on. But amidst this panic, I felt a connection with my senses. I had a reality check.

Now I didn’t immediately have this reality check, but as a few hours passed I became totally submerged in the realisation that I had been. I sat to myself, wondering how on earth I could elevate myself from this position. Suddenly, the gentle, melodic sound of Lee’s voice wandered into my mind.

The first words I remembered him singing was “do everything with a strategy”, that just kept ringing and ringing in my ear several times over. By that, I followed my desire to listen. 

As soon as I did, I felt utterly renewed. Less alone, less...scared. I really have to thank Swae Lee for that.

That’s the magic of music. Music really unleashes the ability to feel a meaningful company in the experiences you have, which is what ‘Reality Check’ did for me. As soon as the song ended, I quickly repeated it to take it all in again, to hear him tell me what’s what.

As well as the message, his angelic vocals also took me in, specifically with the “Ooo”’s he performs in the bridge, followed by a beautiful descending run.

On a ‘Verified’ interview with Genius, Lee actually talked about the changing intent for the song, stating how it was written a while back where the lyrics were originally “I need a check in reality”, but he felt the lyric change of “I got a check in reality” better suited as it takes ownership of the problem, making it something he’s much more proud of. By the time he released the track, the Black Lives Matter protests were on the rise, which Lee actually attended in support of the movement, bringing the meaning of the song closer to home. Where both the pandemic and the rates of racism are currently what people need to tap into, the song aids the realisation that it’s not something to be fantasised about. Humanity should pay attention to injustice and world devastations to take action in accordance to the cause.

This whole meaning alongside the standard experience of having a ‘reality check’ really hit me to the point of feeling the drive to change my ways. To find a “strategy” in order to work through this ‘reality check’ of my own, essentially making my own mark by having “a check in reality”. Ultimately, life hits you hard, but as Swae Lee highlights, it’s how you take on that push-back experience to make it into a positive outcome for yourself.

Simone Williams

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