NYK: How I Wrote “On Me”
When I first started working on the song, I had just exited my previous, less-than-ideal contract with a label. I'd taken a break from music for a while at that point. On a whim I looked through the demos I wrote over the past few years and heard this hook I recorded on voice notes: “You can put this on me.”
I reckon back then I wrote it as a song about a relationship and being burdened with the baggage that a partner brought into it. In a sense the song can still be listened to that way… a story about two people arguing all the time, the main character realizing he was contributing to the toxic environment, and deciding to shoulder the burdens that came with this relationship.
However, by the time I started building off of that hook on my voice notes, a different intention had manifested; I started visualizing the toll 2019 had taken on my mental health, be it the stress from my label, friendships going bad, betrayals, and a troubled relationship. In a sense the true meaning of the song is a description of my mental state during those times: having so much put on me, but convincing myself I could carry it all. It’s also nice that it’s written from a hindsight perspective, with a third-person view of those darker periods. I’m taking an approach of NYK as a character more than me as a human being; his experiences are fictional based on my life. I’m a fan of having subliminal meanings in my songs; one can enjoy it as another pop song, or they can think about it more and relate to it in other, possibly more introspective ways.
“On Me” Cover Art / Click to Listen!
The music video (shot by Rocketmob) expands on this concept further; instead of taking the lyrics literally and showing a couple, the video shows NYK in an asylum under treatment or observation, representing him being shackled and restrained by external factors like the pressures and toxicities mentioned. It’s also a mild poke at the state of lockdown due to COVID-19, what with the masks and house arrest and all. The "doctors" put him under an induced sleep and he has fever dreams, with several different characters in it, representing more of his inner burdens: the strongman represents his relationship with toxic masculinity and its insecurities; the doctors represent the internal toll of the external burdens on his mental health; the female DJ represents his confusion in defining, giving and receiving love. NYK is just along for the ride as these characters argue and dictate what he should think and feel.
The rest of the music coming up is similarly going to be a reflection of the experiences I encountered during the past few years of my life that taught me lots about what it means to be good, to be joyful, and understand human nature. To summarise, this is my departure from the previous version of NYK while I was under my previous label, and I’m about to revitalize my career exactly the way I want to do it.