Beneath the surface – Lazarusman on Skin, humanity and shared experiences

“Life in itself is a series of shared experiences.” Some albums arrive with answers. Others arrive with questions. Skin, the long-awaited album from South African spoken-word artist Lazarusman, belongs to the latter. Listening to it feels less like moving through a collection of tracks and more like sitting down with someone who is willing to share the thoughts that usually remain unspoken. Beneath its reflections on identity and belonging lies something surprisingly simple: a deep sense of humanity, carried by love, compassion, and a warmth that runs through every line of the record.

Across deep house, Afro house, jazz-infused electronics and spoken word, Skin draws inspiration from Lazarusman’s experiences growing up in a newly liberated South Africa. Moving between personal memories and broader reflections, the album explores race, faith, history and the invisible threads that connect us to one another.

For more than fifteen years, Lazarusman has been one of electronic music’s most distinctive voices, bringing depth and introspection to dance floors around the world. With Skin, however, the focus feels more personal than ever. Supported by collaborators including Stimming, FKA Mash, Dwson, Johannes Brecht and Xinobi, the album balances intimate storytelling with universal themes, encouraging reflection without ever losing sight of the people at its heart.

We spoke with Lazarusman about the stories behind Skin, the relationship between language and identity, and why embracing complexity might be one of the most human things we can do.

Photos: Press Courtesy

Skin feels deeply personal, but at the same time it speaks to something collective. When did you realize that your own story could become a mirror for larger conversations about identity, race, and belonging?

To answer your question I think at the point when you begin to realise that life in itself is a series of shared experiences. People go through similar things just in different shapes and forms. Mine might be racism, for a woman it might be sexism or patriarchy. Pain is pain and love is love no matter what forms these things come in we feel them all the same.

Your poetry often feels less like performance and more like memory unfolding in real time. Do you write to understand yourself better – or to understand the world around you?

A bit of both, I can’t tell you how many times, on this album I listened to some of the lyrics, shocked myself and then began unpacking an emotion I didn’t realise I was projecting. The world goes by so quickly so poetry, music and art are ways to distill the passage of time. And this balance brings a lot of solace in my life.

“… life in itself is a series of shared experiences. People go through similar things just in different shapes and forms.”

Growing up in post-apartheid South Africa means carrying histories you didn’t choose, but still somehow inherit. How has Johannesburg shaped the emotional language of this album?

Joburg moulded me, it’s mean streets, it’s loving people, it’s ally ways, down town battle rap cyphers and poetry slams shaped me and so many others before me. Apartheid held us back from touching the sky. And once we were free my people didn’t waste time getting the world’s attention. You can see it now, AfroHouse, Ama Piano, 3 step. Jozi has also had this pioneering spirit, inherit to it since forever.

There’s a strong tension throughout Skin between tenderness and heaviness, between hope and disillusionment. Was it important for you not to romanticize either pain or healing?

The correct answer is always healing but it’s so easy to become your pain, to be a victim of your circumstance, because healing is hard. No one speaks about that enough.

Amidst all the reflection and emotional weight on Skin, there are also moments of warmth, intimacy and love that feel incredibly grounding. What role does love play in your writing, especially in a world that can often feel so divided and heavy?

A few years ago, I discovered a love hack. The best type of love, is love that doesn’t need to be requited to exist. When you love someone because you made the choice to love them. It’s so much easier to deal with everything after that. And I feel that about most of the people in my life. I love you because I choose to and I am willing to carry the responsibility of that love. Whether they feel the same or not. So that way the fulfilment comes from loving. Being loved is the bonus round and we all love bonus rounds.

“The best type of love, is love that doesn’t need to be requited to exist. When you love someone because you made the choice to love them.”

*S*poken word in electronic music can sometimes feel secondary to the beat, but on Skin, the words almost become the rhythm themselves. How do you approach the relationship between poetry and sound when creating a track?

I really chose a genre that does not champion poets or vocalists as much as it does it’s producers. It’s so hard to make a name for yourself in this industry but here I am.

I approached this the way a rapper or singer would, I sat for almost a year writing all the poems for this album. Then after I finished each poem I wrote the producers name next to the title and sent it to them. This allowed autonomy and agency of the creative process.. The poems came before the music. The producers created something from scratch. I loved that, they all surprised me but did exactly what I expected them to.

South Africa has one of the most exciting and emotionally rich electronic music scenes in the world right now, from Afro House to Amapiano and beyond. What do you think makes South African dance music feel so spiritually and emotionally connected to people?

It’s because our music is created for the people, the townships, the clicks the crews in street corners before it’s made for commercial success. Few things are better than capturing the spirit of your hood, your people, where you are from. I think people can feel that because it’s raw unfiltered emotion that resonates. You’ll never see a South African artists DJing or performing without a smile on their face. Our music is made with love.

“Few things are better than capturing the spirit of your hood, your people, where you are from.”

Many of your lyrics feel built around repetition, almost like mantras or prayers. What draws you to repeating certain phrases until they open up emotionally?

The is actually the core of slam poetry, if you listen to the Last Poets, mSaul Williams, Gill Scott Heron and other poets this idea of repeating mantras until they become truths separates this from your contemporary Oxford dictionary coffee shop poetry.

And the biggest thing is adding the emotion to each word so that every time you hear it sounds slightly different from last time you heard it. Because the emotions have influenced the inflection and delivery.