Arranging a beautiful harmony of strings and vocals, Barbadian-born, L.A.-based, singer Ayoni captures the tender and often tumultuous experience of being a Black woman with her new single, “Unmoved (A Black Woman Truth).”
With her new single, Ayoni professes an inner strength she holds onto and shares with others so they too can find their unmovable spirits. Moving with her words, Ayoni lays down rolling guitar riffs that crescendo with her vocals to beautiful points of realizations and proclamations.
“Unmoved is the most vulnerable I’ve ever been about my experience as a Black woman in this world,” Ayoni writes about her new song. “The cover of this record is a photograph from my last year of innocence, at the age of 3. It would be a year later during my first week of school that I’d be sitting alone at recess because the girls informed me I was unworthy of playing with them because I am Black.”
Explaining how this and other experiences left impressions on her as she navigated the world, Ayoni shares her the pain and confusion that went along with an eventual resistant to accept and love herself as a young Black woman.
“Unmoved (A Black Woman Truth)” is a vulnerable encapsulation of all that Black women carry throughout their lives, sharing vignettes of her life and tying them together with bigger, underlying sentiments to turn the mirror within her own community — learning to love and accept yourself — and without — also calling on her friends and allies to really put skin in the game.
“I’ll leave the way I came. Unseen, unheard, unmoved. A Black woman truth … Are you sitting comfortable while we bleed in vain? I’ve died by other names. Please make me feel you care my ally. But are you prepared to to lose your sleep? To bare your teeth? To break like me?,” Ayoni sings.
Ayoni lets the world know she won’t hold in her thoughts and frustrations anymore, and instead, she asserts herself in the world clearly as she is and calls upon others to do the same and join her in her resolve and fight for the future.
“Unmoved (A Black Woman Truth)” is not just a song that aims to explain one experience, but also give aid to another vulnerable group in society. All proceeds from the song, Ayoni notes, will go towards the Black and Pink National, “to honor my LBTGQI+ siblings that are incarcerated and/or HIV/AIDS+ while fighting for prison abolition, a cause crucial to our liberation.”
For more about Ayoni and her music, make sure to follow her on social media or her other websites.
Words: Patricia Sanchez
