Anjimile Chithambo has signed with 4AD and released his debut with the label “Stranger.”
“’Stranger’ is something of a confrontation between my past and present selves in relationship to my trans identity,” Anjimile said in a statement. “I started testosterone about 3 or 4 years ago, and It’s been simultaneously liberating and alarming to note the changes to my mind and body over the years.”
The Dallas native sings a soft and warm embrace to himself, with a harmonic river of instruments slowly building into a triumphant revolution of accepting a new revelation about oneself, and allowing it to trickle in. No longer a child nor monster, Chithambo beautifully establishes “I’ll never be the same,” making for a powerful and inspiring ballad of his internal battles of transitioning, and how he set himself free.
“‘Stranger’ is an admission to myself that, while I welcome all of those changes–especially the deepening effect of testosterone on my singing and speaking voice–it’s still scary and there is a degree of internal ambivalence to my transition,” Anjimile continued. “In transitioning I lost, or gave up, a part of myself. And that is hard to reconcile. ‘Stranger’ is an attempt at some semblance of reconciliation, I guess.”
Anjimile released his debut Giver Taker in 2020 and is currently working on its follow-up.
