Sade to release new song dedicated to her trans son

New music from Sade is reason enough for excitement, but when it comes as part of an epic compilation album aimed at spreading awareness of the transgender community, that really is, in a word, major.

The iconic British-Nigerian singer is one of over 100 artists who have contributed to Transa — styled TRAИƧA — a 46-song album from nonprofit Red Hot, whose mission, according to their website, is to promote public health and diversity.

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In a statement announcing the project, out November 22, Red Hot executive director Dust Reid, who co-produced the album with artist and activist Massima Bell, said that Transa was partly inspired by the 2021 death of pioneering trans producer Sophie and sprang from conversations he and Bell had about “all the gifts that trans artists have been giving to the world.” Reid said he and Bell “wanted to create a Red Hot project that centered and celebrated those gifts.”

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“We hoped to create a narrative that positions trans and nonbinary people as leaders in our society insofar as the deep inner work they do to affirm who they are in our current climate,” Reid said. “We felt this is something everybody should do. Whether you identify as trans or nonbinary or otherwise, if you took the time to explore your gender [and] get in touch with the feeling side of yourself, maybe we would have a future oriented around values of community, collaboration, care, and healing.”

Nearly all of Transa’s 46 tracks, which are divided into eight “chapters” representing stages in a “spiritual journey,” are collaborations, and the album features artists of all sexualities and gender identities. Stars like Sade, Sam Smith, André 3000, and Hunter Schafer appear alongside emerging trans artists like Lauren Auder, whose cover of Prince’s “I Would Die 4 U” with the late icon’s former collaborators Wendy & Lisa, is the first single from Transa.

Other artists featured on the album include pioneering trans punk rocker Jayne County, Perfume Genius, Ezra Furman, Sharon Van Etten, Wilco’s Jeff Tweedy, Bikini Kill’s Kathi Wilcox, Big Thief’s Adrianne Lenker, and so many more.

“We want everyone to be able to see themselves in this project, not just people who identify as trans today,” Reid explained in a video on Red Hot’s official YouTube channel. “So, for that reason, we’ve invited artists across genres to celebrate and support trans communities through a cross-cultural, intergenerational musical collaboration leveraging the most respected artists in the world.”

Sade’s track, “Young Lion,” comes as part of the album’s seventh chapter, “Liberation,” and is dedicated to her son, model and artist Izaak Theo Adu, who is transgender.

“In 2023, I wrote a letter to Sade and I just really wanted to express to her how meaningful it would be for a parent of a trans child to show support and love for that child,” Bell explains in the video on Red Hot’s YouTube channel. “And she responded in a really heartwarming way and agreed to contribute an original song in support of her trans son Izaak.”

While the song hasn’t been released yet, The New York Times described it this week as featuring the singer’s distinctive vocals over a soft piano riff, with lyrics Sade wrote. “Young man, it’s been so heavy for you/You must have felt so alone,” she reportedly sings. “I should have known.”

“It’s amazing to hear a legendary musician like Sade sing about her heartfelt experience as the parent of a trans child,” Bell told the Times. “It’s incredibly powerful.”

Founded by Leigh Blake and John Carlin in 1989 in response to the HIV/AIDS epidemic, Red Hot has produced over 20 albums since its first, 1990’s Red Hot + Blue, a compilation of Cole Porter covers by artists like Sinéad O’Connor, Iggy Pop, Tom Waits, Erasure, Annie Lennox, and others to benefit organizations fighting the disease. According to the Times, Red Hot says it has donated some $15 million, mostly from record sales, to related causes since its founding.

But Carlin told the paper that declining record sales have led Red Hot to shift its focus from fundraising to raising awareness.

“Red Hot + Blue served as the first lighthouse of hope that things could be different. And we hope to create a similar vision of the future with Transa,” Reid says in the organization’s YouTube clip. “As we know with 30 years of hindsight, gay people can now hold positions of power and love openly and we want trans people to be able to hold positions of power and be their whole self.

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