@Diplo went and made “We’ll Always Have This Dance” the tearjerker it was always meant to be with this remix. (You’ll know what I’m talking about once you hear the intro.) Swipe for all of the versions of this song — from the banging @tshamusic remix, to the OG KUU release with @alexmetricmusic and @ritontime, to the first super rough demo straight outta my quarantined loneliness. Now please excuse me while I have a sentimental dance with the ancestors. Check my stories or @kuumusic’s account for a direct link. 💛
If you can’t buy it, make it. If you can’t make it, stop doubting yourself and make it anyway. So long as you like it, it’s good art. 💛
The “To be me” video is out now! (Link in bio.) Thank you, from the infinite depths of my heart, to everyone who has listened to and reached out about “To be me.” I’ve never connected so deeply with people over a song. Now, more than ever, I feel the power of our togetherness, and a certainty that the future will be brighter — and safer — because of it. 💛
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
Story by Shungudzo
Directed by @g.smithofficial, Shungudzo
Filmed by G.Smith
Edited by G.Smith, Shungudzo
Produced by G.Smith, Shungudzo
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
Special thanks to my visual soul sister G.Smith. To @paper & @justintmoran for premiering our work. To @bilgerorama & @oprahtheactress for acting out-of-character to help me tell this vulnerable story. And to @leftoversnacks for his helping hand on set.
What I’m telling myself today 💛
treat every day
like a
beautiful stranger
and when it’s over
thank her
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
remember her fondly
when you
dance with tomorrow
and speak to her warmly
when she
calls to say hello
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
My roundabout way of reminding myself to be present and to love, forgive, and be grateful for my past.
How many different things can I do with my arms in three minutes? Find out in @kuumusic’s “We’ll always have this dance” video — out now! Thank you to @wonderland for premiering the video and to everyone involved in making it, including Renee George (Director), Ash Gandhi (D.P.), Lernik Grikorian (MUA) and Chris Emile (Movement). Watch the full vid via swipe-up in my stories.
This includes allowing ill-willed/ignorant external forces to cause us to believe we are less than amazing. Check your inner voice and make sure it’s yours!
Hi, have you told your body you love it today, and have you listened to “To be me” yet? If not, feel free to click the link in my bio and hug yourself until it’s over. 💛
“To be me” is out now, and I need your help proving that songs like this matter! Music is for escaping — but also, sometimes, it’s for being painfully real. Please share this song with everyone you know, whether you can relate or not, so that it finds its way to the ears of those who need it most. If you can relate to any part of this song, you’re not alone. We’re not alone, and there’s endless strength in our togetherness. 💛
This is the artwork for my new song, “To be me.” I started writing it in response to a guy following me in his car, flirting out the window, giving me flashbacks to being sexually violated. I wanted to tell him to fuck off — I wanted to tell him that he was making me fear for my life — but I was afraid to damage his ego and potentially put myself in a worse situation. By the time I got home, my frustration over not speaking up for myself was so intense that I could feel my heartbeat in my head. I started writing “To be me” to calm and re-empower myself, but over the half an hour it took to pour out of me, the song grew into something so much more than I set out to create. I can’t wait for you to hear “To be me” tomorrow (or midnight if you’ll be up). Follow the link in my bio to pre-save it!
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
📸 : @g.smithofficial
I’d never read a poem aloud, except for to myself or to anyone who could hear me whispering words as I wrote them, until last spring. Thank you for making me feel safe to share with you, and for encouraging me to call myself a “poet” in a time when I didn’t think I was worthy of the title. Sometimes the Internet can be really beautiful. 💛
These are the opening lyrics of my song “To be me,” which comes out this Friday (January 15th). I hope they’ll speak for themselves until I can sing them for you. Pre-save “To be me” via the link in my bio.
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
🎥: @g.smithofficial. Edited by me. Very special thanks to @bilgerorama for lending his presence to help me tell such a difficult and vulnerable story.
I wrote and produced a song about refusing to live in a world in which people make other people feel unsafe in their bodies — for any reason. It’s called “To be me,” and it comes out next Friday (1/15). Follow the link in my bio to pre-save it. I’m gonna share snippets of the lyrics, and other poems I’ve written that eventually led me to the song, until the big day. Today, a poem from the archives about dressing only to impress myself.
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
📸 @g.smithofficial
“To be me” comes out next Friday (1/15), and I figured the best way to introduce you to the song is to share some of its lyrics, in poem form. It’s for anyone who has felt unsafe in their skin, body, identity or expression. It’s also a song that I hope some of the people who make us feel unsafe can take in and learn from. Please pre-save “To be me” via the link in my bio. I can’t wait for you to hear it. <3
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
🎥: @g.smithofficial, promo edited by me, and YOU BET we made a full-length video too!
You have the power to change your family’s past, present and future forever.
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
Growing up in my family, failing meant homelessness. At times, I didn’t even have the moral support of those closest to me in my pursuits of my dreams, because pursuing my dreams meant risking everything. I had to learn to derive strength and motivation from within, and from personal mantras like this.
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t terrified. Every time I pass an unhoused person, I think about what a fine line there is between having and not having. I think about how that could be me or someone I love; how so many of us are only one missed paycheck away from homelessness; only one drought away from starvation. I think about intergenerational pain, and how we carry weights that aren’t our own. How cruel it is that someone can be cast out of society for what their parents, their grandparents, or someone even more distant felt and, resultantly, did. How we need to have more empathy.
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
So many people in the world are struggling right now. Many others feel the pressure to fix it. Some of us don’t feel like we have a choice — like if we don’t fix it, no one will. If you’re feeling the pressure to “make it” alongside the fear or not “making it,” you’re not alone. I beg you to consider how far you’ve actually come, and that you might — in fact — already be out of that cycle of pain and misfortune that you’ve spent your whole life running from. (Note to self!)
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
I gladly take on the responsibility to build a better future for myself and for my family. I know that the cycle stops with my siblings and I. I know that moving forward means healing the past — including fears and pains that aren’t my own, but that have been passed down through generations. I know that future generations of my family will be better off because of the internal and external work I am doing now. I know that I have already come so far.
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
What are you carrying that isn’t your own? More importantly, look at how far you’ve come carrying it! Now, let’s work our hardest to let it all go, so that we may climb every mountain we encounter without weighted souls. 💛
Took a walk with my favorite, @g.smithofficial, and shot this “It’s a good day (to fight the system)” visualizer on our iPhones. Get to my YouTube channel via the link in my bio, or head directly to this video via the swipe up in my stories. 💛
I like old things
With histories
I make up
Like the memory
Of someone
Getting married
In this dress
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
She lived a short
But happy life
Whether or not
She stayed a wife
And she made love
To Elvis
On cassette
Ahhhh! @jessieware’s “Remember Where You Are” is one of @barackobama’s 2020 favorites! Wish I could hug Jessie, @modelchild_____ and @janesellisford right now in celebration of such a wonderful honor, such a visionary artist, and this beautiful song that we made together in hopes of lifting people’s spirits through tough times. Love y’all!
I have gold in my bones
And diamonds in my soul
And my roots
They are buried
In African soil
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
I want freedom
For my people
That is all
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
I want freedom
For my people
That is all
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
“Freedom for my People” with @oliverheldens is out now! I’m so happy to finally share this song with you, which is rooted in how proud I am to be a Black, Zimbabwean-American woman, how deeply I long for the freedom of all Black people, and how certain of, and grateful I am for, our inner strength — both the fortitude and optimism that we’ve cultivated in our lifetimes and the resilience that our ancestors have passed on to us. You don’t have to be a Black person to feel this song. Our histories are intertwined, and Black liberation is good for everybody who has been oppressed, undermined or held back simply for being who they are or looking like they do. The more thriving people in our communities, the better our communities will be!
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
Swipe for how “Freedom for my People” started — as an a cappella posted on Instagram. All of the original vocals are in the song now, which @oliverheldens and I finished over a series of text messages. Big love to Oliver for adding such optimism to the message with his music. I can’t stop dancing and hope that, wherever you are, you’re dancing too. 💛
Lawd knows I can’t draw, and I have the watercolor skills of a preschooler who is bad at art, but I’m so proud to have designed and created the set in the “It’s a good day (to fight the system)” video. As simple as it is, making it fortified my belief that anything is possible. Here are some of my first drawings and the final result. Thank you to @samafghani and @bilgerorama, who lent their woodworking skills to making my imagination a reality. Watch the video if you haven’t already, and if anyone wants fake clouds, I still have lots of fluff.