Introducing Canadian rapper
Haviah Mighty,
who leads the ‘Protest’ on new song
ft. UK grime mc Yizzy
Introducing award-winning Canadian rapper Haviah Mighty, who today shares her powerful new single, ‘Protest‘, featuring UK grime rapper, Yizzy. With the release comes the news of her highly anticipated new mixtape, Stock Exchange, set for release this summer.
Produced by Young Dreadz, ‘Protest‘ is a visceral recall of the feelings of guilt and stress that many marginalised individuals carry with them daily due to centuries of suffering, heaviness, pain and bloodshed at the hands of law enforcement. The production blends slow, sad, ethereal piano chords with aggressive 808s and a drill-infused percussive groove, following a pace that rises like a heartbeat with tension. Visually, Haviah and Yizzy go beyond borders, taking to their own streets to speak truth into a video directed by Kit Weyman and Chrris Lowe in collaboration with Director X-led Fela productions (Drake, Rihanna, Kendrick Lamar, Rosalia, Jay Z).
Says Haviah, “This song is my protest – a reminder that regardless of all the conversations, the chatter, the media, the justices and injustices – this feeling and fear we walk with, is as present as ever. After all these years, encountering the police as a marginalized person still triggers pure fear. These feelings within the production – the intensity and depth of the chords, the stress and tension of the pacing – it all mirrors the feelings of paranoia, fear, control, and our innate will to survive when encountering law enforcement. Having UK-based artist, Yizzy, bless this record brings it full circle. From a light skin male’s perspective from somewhere else on the globe, our experiences still mirror one another, a further testament to the eerie similarities of trauma among Black folks.”
Haviah‘s forthcoming Stock Exchange mixtape will also feature collaborations with Grandtheft, Mala Rodriguez, TOBi, and more. The title refers to a reckoning Haviah had internally over the last year in regards to how artists are forced to validate their value based on random data (followers, subscribers) and losing a part of the authentic human-to-human universal experience of art. She adds,“These statistics that we use to compare ourselves to others and to define our successes, have become proof of our worth. It’s all perception. These ideas around perceived value got me thinking about the Stock Exchange. Seeing parallels between the way it flows – the constant rising and falling – all dictated by the general public’s perception of an entity’s value, and ultimately how that influences the moves that we make as individuals.”
Action and advocacy aren’t new words in Haviah Mighty’s vocabulary – they go beyond lexicon. Haviah became the first hip hop artist, as well as the first Black woman, to win the Polaris Music Prize for her breakthrough 2019 album, 13th Floor. The project and the hard-hitting singles that followed highlight her vast sonic influences ranging from classic Rap/Hip-Hop elements to Caribbean rhythms, frenetic electro and diverse instrumentation, while tackling marginalisation, racism, the Atlantic slave trade, loneliness, self-worth, and more. Garnering praise from Rolling Stone, the BBC, GQ, Pitchfork, NPR Music, Consequence, The Source, Complex, and others, stay tuned for more music and news from Haviah Mighty soon.
‘Protest ft. Yizzy‘ is out now, buy/stream it here.
Stay connected with Haviah Mighty:
STAY CONNECTED WITH BLACK OF HEARTS
Synapse: A better way to master Discover your best sound with Synapse—the next step in online AI mastering.