Last month saw Jamila Woods return with “SULA (Paperback)”, her first new music since releasing one of 2019’s best albums, LEGACY! LEGACY!. Now, she’s shared a different version of the track, appropriately called “SULA (Hardcover)”.
Inspired by Nobel Prize-winning author Toni Morrison’s 1973 novel of the same name, “SULA” finds Woods rejecting conventional ideas of identity in order to “embrace my tenderness, my sensitivities, my ways of being in my body.” Whereas the “Paperback” version did this as a peaceful mantra, the “Hardcover” take features a more sensual grove. With a silky beat from Slot-A, “SULA (Hardcover)” fully embodies the sexuality at the song’s core.
As does the accompanying music video. The clip would be labeled slightly NSFW in normal days, but let’s be real, this is a pandemic; how many of us are actually at work? Directed by Brown Girls creator Fatimah Asghar, the video is set in a garden space made up to look like a bedroom. As Woods disrobes, she relishes in the “comfort of her own space,” as Asghar put it in a press release.
The director continued,
“Who do we give ourselves permission to be when we’re alone? When our gaze is only on ourselves?… Quarantine has had us all wondering what our lives, our sexuality, is like away from the gaze of the world. And Sula is all about empowered sexuality, carving your own path outside of what society thinks is okay. Embracing both the empowered erotic in her own way, this video will show a side to Jamila we’ve never seen before.”
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Woods recently contributed to a limited edition Bandcamp comp for voters’ rights, Good Music to Avert the Collapse of American Democracy. Next on her docket is the Bonnaroo Virtual ROO-ALITY online festival taking place September 24th-26th. Other artists set to appear include David Lynch, Chromeo, Nathaniel Rateliff, Bruce Hornsby and James Mercer, Action Bronson, Charli XCX, Big Freedia, Hayley Williams, and more.
