In our search for individuals to admire and inspire us, to champion our convictions, we often overlook the obvious – the one most difficult to recognize – the champion that resides inside us. 

Melody Bien Aime’s I Am Rising is a testament to her inspired journey to embrace and honor her inner champion, while linking her personal affirmation to the wider social justice demands of the moment. 

With its neo soul groove, this first ever single Melody says I Am Rising,  “is a love song wrapped around a protest anthem” influenced by Alicia Keyes’, Underdog, Gil Scott-Heron’s The Revolution Will Not Be Televised, Lin-Manuel Miranda’s My Shot and Andra Day’s Rise Up. 

“Overwhelmed with emotions of current events I wrote this piece, with a heavy heart but with hope for the future. My life matters, and yours does too.” 

Written just nine days after the horrific murder of George Floyd, and with swelling global protests against injustice and brutality, Melody said she felt a welling-up of emotions to the point of overflowing.

“Senseless killings, senseless violence. These issues are bigger than one race versus another. It’s about how humanity is crumbling, how society is normalizing and hiding deaths. Humanity is at a breaking point for change. From now on nothing will be the same, there must and will be forward progression,” the 23-year-old artist contends. 

With thoughtful, defiant, yet uplifting lyrics set against a hip-hop beat, the song demonstrates the unifying power of music. The power to unite individuals, the power to unit generations, the power to unit musical genres. 

“I wanted to have elements of rap, spoken word poetry and singing in the piece. I wanted those reflected in the song because it shows the diversity in black music. We are not only hip-hop, we are not only trap music. We are multidimensional, we tackle issues of the struggle, and yet we talk about how we rise above.”

 Melody recorded the music in a make-shift studio she built during the months long pandemic stay-at-home orders. The tiny space was a creative, transformative cocoon, that fortified her faith and convictions around her multiple identities, her human connectedness and her ultimate optimism.