Madame Gandhi has made a name for herself as an artist, lyricist, percussionist, and an outspoken advocate for gender liberation. After the Women’s March in 2017, her song “The Future is Female” shot up in the Spotify Viral US Charts. She has released two short-form albums, Voices in 2016 and Visions in 2019.
Her new song “Waiting For Me” which will appear on her upcoming short-form album, Vibrations, opens up with the powerful line, “I’m not every day tryna turn up to the sound of my own oppression, you feel me?” This new protest song from Madame Gandhi is an ecofeminist anthem that calls on its listeners to examine how capitalism and oppression serve to keep us compliant while suppressing dialogue and critical thinking.
“Waiting For Me” is her first release signed to Sony Masterworks. The music video contrasts images of industrialization alongside nature imagery, in order to make a message about the environment and the many intersections of environmental justice. The contrast of the images is a powerful message about how systems of oppression keep us obedient and how dismantling those systems will allow us to grow. The music video also focuses on queer, trans, female, and gender non-conforming cast members and was produced by an all-women team.
During the song, Madame Gandhi says, “I don’t want our identity to be defined according to how oppressed we are. Do you feel me?” This is a powerful statement about people who are oppressed who are often not allowed to tell their own stories and have their stories told through a lens of pain and oppression while erasing the stories of joy and victory.
“We as artists have the power to use our art to vividly reimagine the world we wished we lived in,” Gandhi says. “‘Waiting For Me’ is a song about questioning societal norms as they exist.” She hopes that “this video inspires folks to ask, ‘Are my behaviors contributing to the oppression of somebody else? And what contributes to my own oppression? What does my version of freedom look and feel like?”
Check out the powerful music video:
Header image: Gizelle Hernandez for BUST
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