Lights Go Out

Speaking from a mixed race perspective, straddling experience and identities, I have been talking about issues of racial justice for a decade. Nitelife magazine describes how I ‘weave poetry, spoken word and beautiful lyricism’ through my songs, ‘presenting some very real and raw issues of love, life and the human condition’. I hope this new track ‘Lights Go Out’, which brings together my music and activism, is no exception.

I wrote this song on Black Out Tuesday, an action, originally organised within the music industry in response to the killings of George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery, and Breonna Taylor. I took out my pen to say that, although good, we need to be doing more than posting black squares to show our commitment to racial equality.

Achieving racial equality involves not just shaming individual acts of racism, but people and institutions who hold white privilege and who, knowingly or unknowingly, benefit from a system that was built on white supremacy, recognising and ultimately relinquishing that privilege. 

The song is upbeat, fun and hopeful but it also speaks truth. The words ‘frozen still, scared to give it up, one more sip, from the silver cup’ describe the last ditch attempts to cling to racist power; something that we saw so clearly with the invasion of the US capitol in January.

The lyrics ‘you know it wasn’t earned, so we unpick and we unlearn’ describe the necessity of recognising privilege on an individual level and doing the work to level the playing field. I think the hope and truth is that there is freedom for everybody on the other side of that process. 

The new track is inspired by Janelle Monae’s Turntables, the gospel roots of Micheal Kiwanuka and BBC 6 Music’s 2020 album of the year winners, SAULT. You can also hear flavours of the Afro-beat, soul and RnB sprinkled in that influence my sound. To enjoy a curation of all these tracks in my ‘Lights Go Out’ playlist, click below.

The track was previewed alongside my live session on BCfm’s Bristol Music show at the start of February and was featured & with full interview on on BBC Bristol Saturday evening show and on BBC Introducing in the West’s International Women’s Day show. Do listen again via the links if you missed it.

I will be performing it live for the first time at ‘Girls, Girls, Girls’ at internationally renowned St George’s, Bristol, on the 24th of July alongside Beth Rowley, Eliza Shaddad and Bristol’s Murmuration Choir, for which tickets are available now.

I hope you enjoy all that content and look forward to seeing you soon. Be sure to sign up to mailing list if you haven’t already to be kept up to date!

With hope and love.

Sam x