Cold Hearts Glow

by Shaquetta Orr · Hip-Hop/Rap · Made with Bandlab · 0 plays

The story behind this song

"Cold Hearts Glow" is a gothic hip-hop track built around a genuinely strong central image - the title phrase is one of those rare hook concepts that announces its own world the moment you hear it. Shaquetta Thesketchartist is working in a lane adjacent to $uicideboy$ at their most atmospheric and Night Lovell at his coldest, but the lyrical ambition here reaches toward something more literary than either of those comps typically attempt. The listener this track is built for is someone who plays Bones' catalog on a Tuesday night with the lights off and follows that with Ghostemane's earlier industrial-rap work - not because of the aesthetic mood alone, but because that listener is specifically seeking out hip-hop that treats darkness as a compositional principle rather than a costume. The conceptual architecture of the song is the story of this submission: there is a genuine artistic identity present, and the question is whether the craft execution and structural choices are disciplined enough to translate that identity into real commercial placement. At 146 BPM in E minor with a chord vocabulary spanning Em, A, C, Am, G, Bm, F,

Style

gothic hip-hop, dark, atmospheric, literary rap, night drive

Lyrics

_Verse 1_ Candle wax bleeding on a coffin lid, Ghost in the mirror knows all of the foul shit that I did, That's where I store my secrets, If I ever face my demise, Fuck around and die, My fuckin secrets are kept with me, The velvet shadows creeping down the concrete stairs, I breathe in the cold and choke on the midnight air, Cathedral bass is shaking the dust off the pews, Every bar I spit is a bruise that you can't refuse, Black roses are wilting where the neon can't reach, Preachin' from the grave of the shit that the darkness gon' teach, I got a crucifix around my neck, but the Demons know my face, Trapped inside a gothic cathedral, spinning in outer space, They say the warmer the blood, the easier it spills, So, I locked mine in a vault, up, up in Beverly Hills, _Hook_ I'm down in the dark where the cold hearts glow, We dance with the Ghosts that we will never let go, Bury me slow, let the shadows take hold, Black is in the veins, turning the silver into gold, _Verse 2_ The raindrops are falling like the tears of a Saint, Midnight shroud, velvet drape on the window pane, I'm walking through the mausoleum, dancing in the acid rain, My reflection in the puddles look like porcelain and ghosts, I'm staring at the empty seats of the people that I loved the most, Portraits in the hallway with a face that I'm scare to fuckin' paint, Cemetery gates open up when the bass hits, Swallowing my sorrow in a cocktail of black lace and matrix, You want a burning sun? I prefer the lunar eclipse, Frozen words turning into icicles on my lips, Cemetery bloom underneath a bruise-colored sky, I'm the echo that refuses to die, Chandelier is swinging in an empty ballroom, Every step I take is a step toward the tomb, _Bridge_ Don’t mourn me loud, just let the organ moan, I found my peace in the cracks of the stone, If heaven is closed, then let the crypt be my home I wear my Sins are like a crown on the throne _Hook_ I'm down in the dark where the cold hearts glow, We dance with the Ghosts that we will never let go, Bury me slow, let the shadows take hold Black in the veins, turning the silver into gold _Outro_ Bury me slow... let the shadows take hold... Cold hearts glow... Cold hearts glow...