This weekend footage of Luke Aikins plunging 25,000ft (7.6km) without a parachute into a net has fucked with each and every one of us in our own unique way. US Rapper Raury was so fucked with that he took to the studio to pen, record and release a single wholly inspired by his affinity to Aikins, the optimistic and understanding NEVERALONE.
Whereas most of us just saw a guy, falling and falling and falling, finally only JUST hitting a net, Raury saw more. He saw everything, you guys. “What he’s doing is a metaphor for life in general,” he explains “He knows something that nobody else knows.”
Raury felt a bond between himself an Aikins not just due to the fact that he had a near-spiritual experience while sky diving himself, but also because he feels himself and Aikins are cut from the same cloth: Two unique individuals desperate to show the world what they have to offer it.
“Me and the skydiver, we’re the same person, the same being, with the same intentions and thoughts. I just happen to be born in Atlanta, and had access to music and this happened to me. I’m a musical daredevil. He was born where he was born and he had access to skydiving. The differences between being a musician or being a skydiver … it’s all honestly the same. We’re all people who believe something [and] try to show the world what’s in our head, our dreams.”
And here we are thinking it was just a ploy to sell some chewing gum.
At this stage, it looks as though the song will be another standalone track from the artist, off the back of his previous single Home, which was released separately from his debut album All We Need.
One can’t help but view this as our generation’s version of when Albert Einstein and Charlie Chaplin met, a la: “They’re cheering us both!” A true clash of the cerebral titans.
You can hear the song below and why not sync it to the stunt itself. Props to the ‘expert medical assessment’ he copped upon landing. Is there nothing a High 5 can’t fix?
LISTEN: Raury – NEVERALONE
WATCH: Luke Aikins free-falls 25,000ft
