Justin Yates’ “Shedding My Skin” bops from bar one to the 3.25 mark. It begins with a funky guitar riff, which through listening to the rest of the album “Friend” I have come to know as characteristic of his writing. Half acoustic rap, half singer-songwriter the song is relentlessly groovy. He is clearly an accomplished guitarist.

Yates utilises his expert understanding of scansion to craft a stream of consciousness, that almost sounds like an message left on an answering machine. Yates speaks in metaphors to describe his moving on — “after the war the smoke will have to clear. I’m shedding my skin and starting new, my dear” demonstrating his impressive ability as a wordsmith. 

His vocal performance is raspy, and at times a little sassy. One of the hook lines “think about you” shifts to “thought about you”, making a quiet dig at whoever inspired this song. At times it’s difficult to hear Yates’ thoughtful lyrics, and so it might be nice in the future to hear his vocals turned up in the mix so the listener doesn’t miss anything. 

Yates is an absolute force to be reckoned with. No back injury or over-piled workload is going to stop him from grinding his way into the limelight and sharing his music with the world. We’re excited to see where his journey takes him next! Keep up with his antics on Facebook and Instagram.