Jamila Woods Releases Her First Single of 2020, "SULA (Paperback)"
Inspired by the 1973 Toni Morrison novel of the same name.
Jamila Woods has dropped off her latest single “SULA (Paperback),” her first music since her 2019 full-length offering LEGACY! LEGACY! and her first of the year.
The guitar-tinged “SULA (Paperback)” takes inspiration from Toni Morrison’s 1973 novel Sula, and focuses on the relationship between Sula Peace and Nel Wright. If LEGACY! LEGACY! honored the artists of color, this single also pays homage to the characters created by the artist.
“It’s the first Toni Morisson novel I ever read and it inspired the first chapbook of poems I ever wrote,” Woods shared in a statement. “The novel shows the evolution of a friendship between two Black women and how they choose to navigate society’s strict gender roles and rules of respectability. On Sula, Toni Morrison wrote, ‘living totally by the law and surrendering totally to it without questioning anything sometimes makes it impossible to know anything about yourself.’ Returning to the story several years later, it gave me permission to reject confining ideas about my identity designed to shrink my spirit. It reminded me to embrace my tenderness, my sensitivities, my ways of being in my body. This song is a mantra to allow myself space to experience my gender, love, intimacy, and sexuality on my own terms.”
Stream Jamila Woods’ “SULA (Paperback)” on Spotify and Apple Music below.
In other new music releases, James Blake and Flatbush Zombies linked up for “Afterlife.”
