This review was first published in June 2025 (RIDDIM 03/2025).
Label: Wurl Iké Records / In.Digg.Nation Collective / Ineffable
Text: Davide Bortot
Let’s push the big elephant out of the room right away: in this case, what took so long really did turn out good. ”Treasure Self Love” is the debut Lila diehards (like myself) have been wishing for since forever – at the latest since the first singles and the hashtag #AlbumSeason started appearing on Lila’s socials in the summer of 2024. It’s a concept album full of vibes, perfect in all its imperfection and vulnerability, surprisingly small and overwhelmingly huge at the same time.
”Treasure Self Love” is about love, but it opens with a confrontation. ”May all my enemies scatter before me / Many try but fail if they come in my way.” Those are Lila’s first lines on the record, and you can practically see her staring down all the armchair chauvinists and comment-section warriors, the double-standard preachers and small-minded know-it-alls – staring them down until they crack, dissolve into thin air, and clear the path for everything still to come. Poof! As if Lila first had to fight her biggest battle – against the haters and the giant monster they sometimes morph into inside her head – before she can focus on what really matters. And what really matters to her, in every situation and every question of life, is: love.
Love, in a broad sense, that is. Sure, there are straightforward songs like the semi-cover ”Romantic” with Masicka, which with its carefree swing throws you right back to simpler times in the dance, free of any worries. The two singles with U.S. heavyweights H.E.R. and Joey Bada$$ also clearly circle around romantic relationships. ”He Loves Us Both” is a grown-up take on the beloved R&B theme of divided affection, a kind of post-woke ”The Boy Is Mine.” On ”Fry Plaintain,” meanwhile, food acts as a metaphor for sensuality (or, more straightforwardly: sex).
Other songs open things up in a more universal way. ”Too Late To Lie,” for instance, might seem at first like it’s about one manipulative fuckboy, but it’s really about the irreparable damage caused in any kind of relationship when trust is broken. The obvious hit for this coming festival season, ”All Over The Wurl” with Protoje, reframes the core theme once more. The tune celebrates the kind of love that only music can create, whether in Pariiiiis or Ghana or Milton Keynes. The hook is a take on Barrington Levy’s late-nineties collaboration with Canadian rap group Rascalz, ”Top of the World,” and the instrumental follows the lineage of lovers-dancehall riddims from that era, think ”Movie Star” or ”Lalabella.” In that sense, the tune stands as a perfect emblem for the album. Anyone who knows Lila Iké and her closest musical confidant Protoje knows how deeply both of them know their history, and how important it is to them to continue those traditions in their own way. ”Treasure Self Love” is full of these types of nods and references: a Peter Tosh sample here, a Patra shout-out there, a bow to Garnett Silk, an echo of Beres Hammond. It may be a coincidence but that lineage is exactly where Lila belongs: Peter Tosh, Garnett Silk, Beres Hammond. Lila Iké really is one of those rare reggae singers who not only consistently deliver big tunes and shape the style of their generation, but reach people deep inside, in a way that’s hard to explain, but easy to feel.
This special gift manifests itself most clearly when Lila turns toward her mental-health struggles near the end of the album. ”Serious” reflects – in a way even more brutally honest than usual for her – what it feels like to be deep in the tunnel; ”Brighter Days” is the certainty that there’s light at the end of it, as long as you hold on to your love (and your loved ones). The final track, ”Lovely Way,” acts like the album’s conclusion, distilling all its complexity and depth into words so simple they become all the more moving: ”I feel for love in a lovely way.”
Honestly: who doesn’t? Reggae album of the decade so far, please do at me.
