Sound Up! Nana Adjoa

Floating through the age of a virtual reality, Pride has embodied something unlike ever before: dreamy distancing. Musician Nana Adjoa has taken that feeling and gone a little further with the video for her latest single, “She’s Stronger.”

Adjoa is a queer, Dutch-Ghanaian born and Amsterdam-based artist who has made a name for herself through her style of curious indie; blending a sonic exploration with poetic depth. The multi-instrumentalist talent is also a producer, singer, and songwriter with a background in jazz and a way of crafting current techniques with a traditional foundation. Blending soul, funk, jazz, and indie influences, Adjoa is bold and raw in her authentic songwriting.

Unafraid of tackling complicated questions of race, gender, religion, and sexuality, Adjoa has an outward looking approach and presenting an identity-centric introspection. In the new single “She’s Stronger,” the musician dives deep into the feeling of imposter syndrome and not feeling good enough.

Confidence waned for Adjoa when she met this woman, a woman who made her begin to question her independence and authority. This woman Adjoa describes is better, stronger, and places boundaries while carrying the weight and responsibility of life in her arms.

Related article: Sound Up! Kehlani

Wanting to be this stronger woman, Adjoa explores what exactly that means and in what intricate ways does she value strength. With lines like “Two arms, strong enough, to keep me in/ She doesn’t mind, from time to time, she lets me win/ A torn up, rule book, that is who she is,” and “Inside, of your eyes, she sees your tears/ She is a big sponge, soaking up, the blood we spilled/ Her voluntary, free love, that is what you miss” give some insight into what Adjoa really wishes she could be.

During quarantine, many of us took time to reflect on life, love, and relationships. Some of that was inspired by unwanted time away from work, some of that meant that relationships with others changed or were re-defined, and some of that meant looking at ourselves in the mirror and calling ourselves out for undesirable traits.

As we were thrust into quarantine, we have quickly been thrust into Pride season, and feels like with little to no warning life is resembling something that was once upon a time a normalcy. Virtual Prides across the country are the way we are celebrating community, and though spaces like Tracks Nightclub and Blush & Blu in Denver are slowly offering queer spaces yet again, a lot of time is still spent in isolation.

Perhaps turning the sound up on Adjoa’s moody and exploratory “She’s Stronger” is exactly what we need as we transition out of social distancing and into crowds of others who we may feel are still “better than.”