Rotterdam-based artist Winne will release his long-awaited new studio album Mssyeh on 21 March. The album was recorded in his own studio in Rotterdam together with, among others, producer Concrete, with whom he also made his debut album Winne Zonder Strijd (2009).
Each phase in your life is its own story, and Winne has gone through a number of phases. If you zoom out and look at the whole, Mssyeh is about healing. About dealing with a new reality. Winne says: ‘You wake up and your brother is no longer there. But you’re in a place where you feel like you can’t afford to sit down, and you’re in the middle of a tour you’re going to do with your friend and that tour needs to finish but he’s not there anymore.’ Winne lost his best friend Feis in 2019 on New Year’s Day, who was killed by a bullet. Winne’s album Oprecht Door Zee (2018) has just been released, and he and Feis are in the middle of a tour and a busy year is scheduled. So do you push on or put everything on hold? ‘With the info I had at the time and where I felt I was at, I thought: I just have to do this. And so that’s what I did. But then you find out at some point a year later that you are actually just functioning in the red.’
‘I thought I had gone through all the stages of grief, but I found out that I had skipped anger, you can’t skip it, it’s part of the process. I thought I had given grief enough space, but I hadn’t done enough of that either, and it eventually manifested into depression. Finishing this record, sharing it now and telling my story is part of my healing process.’