Moor Mother announces new album The Great Bailout

Camae Ayewa (Moor Mother) has shared plans for a new album titled The Great Bailout, due out March 8 via Anti-. Its lead single, “GUILTY” — produced by Mary Lattimore with Lonnie Holley and featuring vocals from Raia Was and Holley alongside Ayewa’s — is out now.

The new song is a sprawling saga of a track that plays out above slow string swells and Lattimore’s roving harp. On this foundation, Was and Holley spin softly sung webs that lead into and out of a quietly delivered poem from Ayewa. “Taxpayers of erasure… relapse… amnesia,” she asks, “Did you pay off the trauma? The horror? The whip of the sugar cane? The poison of the tobacco?”

In a press release, Ayewa speaks on the album as an examination of British colonialism’s brutal history and lasting reverberations. “Displacement and its effects are not discussed enough,” she explains. “The PTSD of displacement should be a focus, and as we have the opportunity to learn about things happening in the world, we also have the opportunity to learn about ourselves. We’ve been through so many different acts of systematic violence.”

Watch Scott Kiernan’s lyric video for “GUILTY,” stream the song on its own, and see The Great Bailout’s cover art and tracklist below.