Sade is celebrating her trans son in her first new song since 2018. The track, “Young Lion,” is one of 46 songs on the forthcoming compilation album, TRAИƧA: A Spiritual Journey Celebrating Trans People.
The album, due out November 22, is compiled by music production nonprofit organization Red Hot and features over 100 artists including Laura Jane Grace, Hunter Schafer, Sam Smith, and André 3000. The record runs over three and a half hours long and has been in production since 2021.
“I wrote a letter to Sade and I just really wanted to express to her how meaningful it would be for a parent of a trans child to show support and love for that child,” says TRAИƧA co-creator Massima Bell. “She responded in a really heartwarming way and agreed to contribute an original song in support of her trans son, Izaak.”
Artist Izaak Theo Adu-Watts came out as trans in 2016. “When I was younger, my mom didn’t make me be a certain type of way,” he said in 2021. “She always just let me be who I was.”
In “Young Lion,” Sade sings, “Young man, it’s been so heavy for you/You must have felt so alone/I should have known.”
Red Hot’s charity albums have raised over 15 million dollars over three decades for organizations like ACT UP. Producers hope that TRAИƧA will “celebrate and support trans and nonbinary communities through a cross-cultural and intergenerational musical collaboration.”
“We hoped to create a narrative that positions trans and non-binary people as leaders in our society insofar as the deep inner work they do to affirm who they are in our current climate. We felt this is something everybody should do,” TRAИƧA co-creator Dust Reid told Variety. “Whether you identify as trans or non-binary or otherwise, if you took the time to explore your gender, get in touch with the feeling side of yourself, maybe we would have a future oriented around values of community, collaboration, care, and healing.”
