Angel Haze's new track, "Cleanin' Out My Closet," is the 20-year-old rapper's devastating and harrowing first-person account recalling years of sexual abuse.
She's written about her own sexual abuse and suffering in graphic, gut-tearing detail, and it's a stunning bit of bravery that confronts our culture of shame and silence regarding rape and childhood sexual abuse.
"Cleanin' Out My Closet" is one of those songs everybody needs to hear at least once — it will definitely be hard to listen to it twice. But it does contain adult language and sexually explicit content, so please consider if this is the right material for you.
The track borrows lightly from Eminem's "Cleanin' Out My Closet," and appears on Haze's upcoming mixtape, Classick (out Oct. 25), the followup to her July digital EP, Reservation.
Haze's style has always been audacious and raw. Last year, she dropped hints to Fader, in a feature titled "Angel Haze has got Talent and a Whole Lot of Issues," about her traumatic background and how she found release in writing: “I wrote a freaking suicide letter, and it was kind of amazing to me,” she said. “I had to mature much earlier than everyone else.”
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