Corinne Bailey Rae has shared her new song ‘SilverCane’.

The songwriter’s exceptional ‘Black Rainbows’ album has been shorted for the Mercury Prize, with the winner due to be announced this week.

Ahead of this, Corinne Bailey Rae has shared something new. Her song ‘SilverCane’ was prompted by a terrible event from American history – the Tulsa race massacre, a two-day racial pogrom which resulted in the deaths of anywhere between 150 to 200 Black Americans.

‘SilverCane’ aims to channel this sense of grief and paranoia, moving between a depiction of the Black American middle class – “Sometimes we march in this parade / Sometimes we take our aeroplane” – to an eerie exploration of grief and loss.

Corinne Bailey Rae comments…

Known as ‘Black Wall Street’, Greenwood was a wealthy district of an oil town at the turn of the 20th century, with 600 black businesses, including hotels, a bus company, restaurants, 21 churches, a hospital and post office. Several prominent families owned private planes.

The destruction of Greenwood came in 1921 with a well-documented enactment of white supremacist violence, the first incidence of domestic firebombing in US history. But this song celebrates Greenwood before that; the families, the freedom, the confidence, the feeling of having created a place away from hatred and fear. There is an ominous feeling in the background as we, the listener, know what is coming.

‘SilverCane’ is part of my Black Rainbows project. I’m thrilled to be celebrating the success of Black Rainbows as it shortlisted for the Mercury Prize, Album of The Year 2024.

Listen to ‘SilverCane’ below.