Sade will release her first song in 6 years. ‘Young Lion’ will be part of the ‘Transa’ compilation, which the NGO Red Hot has created with the aim of raising awareness about trans identity. Sade dedicates ‘Young Lion’ to her trans son, Izaak. It is not specified whether ‘Young Lion’ is a creation of Sade, the band, or of their vocalist Sade Adu alone.
The ‘Transa’ repertoire will highlight the work of trans and non-binary artists; Sam Smith is one of the artists taking part, as well as Beverly Glenn-Copeland, who has partly inspired the project. ‘Transa’ is out on November 22.
Also featured on the ‘Transa’ songbook are André 3000, who contributes a 30-minute composition, Moses Sumney, who covers SOPHIE, and Jeff Tweedy, as well as Fleet Foxes, Adrianne Lenker, Clairo, L’Rain, Perfume Genius, Yaeji, Devendra Banhart, Laura Jane Grace, Grouper, Helado Negro, Jlin, Cassandra Jenkins, Alan Sparhawk of Low, Kara Jackson and even Hunter Schafer. The album will contain 46 songs contributed by more than 100 artists and will be divided into eight chapters following the fact that the LGBTQ+ flag is made up of eight coloured stripes.
‘Young Lion’ will be Sade’s first release since 2018; that was the year the band behind ‘Diamond Life’ (1984) released songs for two different soundtracks, ‘Flower of the Universe’ for the film ‘A Wrinkle in Time’, and ‘The Big Unknown’ for ‘Widows’. Sade’s last studio album, ‘Soldier of Love’, dates back to 2010.
The first track from ‘Transa’ is a cover of Prince’s ‘I Would Die 4 U’ performed by his collaborators, Wendy & Lisa.
