Legendary artist Sade Adu has shared a video for her song “Young Lion.” the track is off TRAИƧA, the concept album is from storied activist and music production non-profit Red Hot, and the song is Sade’s first in over six years — a loving tribute dedicated to her son, Izaak, a trans man.

With production beginning in 2021, and over 100 artists contributing, TRAИƧA marks one of the most ambitious projects ever undertaken by Red Hot – a spiritual journey across 8 chapters and 46 songs, spotlighting the gifts of many of the most daring, imaginative trans and non-binary artists working today. It softens the edges of the world we know, and invokes powerful dreams of the futures that might one day thunder from its cracks.

Dust Reid, who led production on Red Hot’s 2014 tribute to Arthur Russell, and Massima Bell, an artist and activist based in Los Angeles, began tracing the contours of what would become TRAИƧA together in 2021. The two producers originally met at a video shoot in upstate New York, and immediately bonded over their shared love of Beverly Glenn-Copeland’s music, as well as a common devotional connection to nature. The passing of SOPHIE, the pathbreaking electronic producer who died in January 2021, galvanized the producers and focused their work.

As they began inviting musicians to contribute to TRAИƧA, the political climate in the United States and across the world started to foment an acute reactionary streak. Legislation denying trans people the hard-won right to medically transition proliferated across the country. Book bans rained down on libraries, stamping shut crucial apertures into trans and queer lives. The necessity of TRAИƧA’s presence in the world started to crystallize.

“The stakes have never been higher,” notes Bell. “We’re seeing a rise in anti-trans hate and vitriol that is particularly being spewed in the United States. I am a trans person from Iowa, one of the states that signed into law a bill that prohibits access to gender-affirming care. It is clearly, materially, a terrifying time.”

TRAИƧA features artists from widely dispersed genres and generations, often working in collaboration on a mix of surprising covers and poignant original tracks. Bell and Reid worked from the dreams of the trans artists they invited to participate, pairing many of them with their heroes and inspirations. Trans and cis voices weave together throughout the record. Bill Callahan and Hand Habits harmonize on an acoustic cover of Kate Bush’s prescient 1989 track about falling in love with the internet, “Deeper Understanding,” while Claire Rousay teams with Wilco’s Jeff Tweedy to set a William Blake poem to music on “How Sweet I Roamed.” For “Pink Ponies,” electronic artist Yaeji joins singer-songwriter Teddy Geiger in a delicate reverie of a pop song, their voices intertwining among shuffling drums and twinkling keys. Moses Sumney grounds a cover of SOPHIE’s life-affirming composition “Is It Cold in the Water?” in a jazz setting, sending his falsetto arcing over gently strummed guitar chords and shivering cymbals. On one of the record’s most notable contributions, Sade performs an original song dedicated to her trans son, Izaak – a gesture of unconditional acceptance and love without boundary. (Sade agreed to participate in the project after Bell wrote her a personal letter thanking her for her longtime public support of her son.)

TRAИƧA Tracklist:

Chapter I – Womb Of The Soul

01 Midnight Moon Pool

Mary Lattimore + Laraaji + MIZU + Jamal Shakeri

02 You Don’t Know Me

Devendra Banhart + Blake Mills + Beverly Glenn-Copeland

03 How Sweet I Roamed

Jeff Tweedy + claire rousay

04 Same Train

Heart Shaped + Christian Lee Hutson

Chapter II – Survival

05 STAR

Ana Roxanne + Nsámbu Za Suékama

06 Please Tell Me

Lightning Bug

07 Make ’em Laugh

Benét + Faye Webster

08 Get Me Away From Here, I’m Dying

Julien Baker + Calvin Lauber (feat. SOAK, Quinn Christopherson)

09 Rumblin’

Soft Rōnin (feat. Frankie Cosmos)

10 Deeper Understanding

Hand Habits (feat. Bill Callahan)

Chapter III – Dark Night

11 Under the Shadow of Another Moon

Hunter Schafer + Cole Pulice

12 Blush

Lucy Liyou (feat. Grouper)

13 Is It Cold In The Water?

Moses Sumney (feat. ANOHNI)

14 Know Who You Are At Every Age

Anajah + Gary Gunn

15 Is It Over Now?

Niecy Blues (feat. Joy Guidry)

Chapter IV – Awakening

16 Something Is Happening And I May Not Fully Understand But I’m Happy To Stand For The Understanding

André 3000

17 Come Back Different

Nina Keith (feat. Julie Byrne, Taryn Blake Miller)

18 Song To The Siren

Rachika Nayar (feat. Julianna Barwick, Cassandra Croft)

19 Love Hymn

Arthur Baker (feat. Pharoah Sanders)

20 People Are Small / Rapture

L’Rain + Voices from the NYC Trans Oral History Project

Chapter V – Grief

21 We’ve Been Through So Much

Jlin + Moor Mother

22 My Name

Kara Jackson + Ahya Simone + Dirty Projectors

23 Point of Disgust

Perfume Genius + Alan Sparhawk (Low)

24 In Another Life

Lomelda + More Eaze

25 Pink Ponies

Teddy Geiger + Yaeji

26 A Survivor’s Guilt

Yaya Bey

Chapter VI – Acceptance

27 Just Last Night

Helado Negro + Eileen Myles

28 Feel So Different

Ezra Furman + Sharon Van Etten

29 Mourning Dove

Gia Margaret

30 Feel Better

Adrianne Lenker

31 Any Other Way

Allison Russell + Ahya Simone

32 Down Where The Valleys Are Low

Asher White + Eli Winter + Caroline Rose

33 TM

Fleet Foxes + Cole Pulice + Lynn Avery

34 Querube

AV María + SKY + Belina Rose

Chapter VII – Liberation

35 Within Without

Green-House + Kelela

36 Aaron

Cassandra Jenkins + Bloomsday + Babehoven

37 Young Lion

Sade Adu

38 You Make Me Feel (Mighty Real)

Moses Sumney + Lyra Pramuk + Sam Smith

39 I Feel Free

Sparkle Division (feat. Pepper MaShay)

40 Many Ways

CLARITY (feat. Clairo)

Chapter VIII – Reinvention

41 Get Free

Nico Georis + KB Brookins

42 Wolf Like Me

Bartees Strange + Anjimile + Kara Jackson

43 Surrender Your Gender

Laura Jane Grace (feat. Lee Ranaldo, Jayne County, Kathi Wilcox, Jay Dee Daugherty, Am Taylor)

44 I Would Die 4 U

Lauren Auder + Wendy & Lisa of the Revolution

45 Always

Time Wharp + Elizabeth & Beverly Glenn-Copeland

46 Ever New

Sam Smith + Beverly Glenn-Copeland

Pre-order the TRANSA Box Set HERE