Roots Torn From Red Earth

Twelve voices tracing one family's passage from Yoruba soil to Mississippi cotton — capture, crossing, bondage, and the ember of selfhood that survives.

Track 1–3: sparse West African percussion (djembe, talking drum, shekere), acoustic kora and mbira, open resonant spaces — the sound of a world intact. Track 4–5: percussion fractures into irregular, dissonant rhythmic hits; kora melody is cut mid-phrase and replaced by the low drone of ship's hull, creaking strings, sparse dissonant piano — sonic disintegration. Track 6–8: raw Delta blues guitar enters, field-holler vocals, muted bass thud of labor; African percussion is buried deep in the low end, a ghost underneath. Track 9–10: the blues guitar becomes more expressive and defiant, harmonics ringing, tension rising; layered voices enter as a choir underneath solo lines. Track 11–12: kora re-emerges faintly beneath the blues and choir, weaving through — the two sonic worlds meeting at last; the finale strips everything back to a single voice and one mbira line, silence as the final note.

12 tracksone concept · one palette

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01 · Female vocalWest African folk / Afropop-inflected folk

The Names of Everything

Verse 1

Adaeze — Sade — rising

Emeka — Kolade — rising

Red clay roots their feet to this ground Adaeze — baobab above the compound, sheltering dark

Shekere hangs where Emeka left it last evening

Kolade beside me, warm as the turned earth

The fire lit — the names ours Palm oil in the pot, smoke reading the roof

Red dust marks the place each child has stood

This ground knows every child it grew Kolade’s skin — woodsmoke and loam

Morning finds him where I left him

Root and name — the same word here Say the names while the names are yours to say

Chorus

She calls the names — we say them

Morning carries them — returns them whole

The compound wall warms — sunrise coming

She calls — we answer, we are here Oshun — this water ran all night

Wide and open, your body giving

Orisha older than the baobab, older than the red morning

Every child who drank, then ran — yours River — mouth — child — praise — water

She gave — and we opened

All of it, all of it — given She gave — we opened

All of this — Adaeze’s

Coda

Adaeze — Sade — Emeka — Kolade —

Named before the light — still here

Hmmmm...

Make this in Suno

West African folk, Afropop-inflected traditional folk, early 19th-century Yoruba aesthetic, 12/8 ballad tempo, slow and ceremonial, approximately 54 BPM, key of D major or E-flat major. Female lead vocal, soprano-alto, warm chest register, unhurried phrasing, each line a separate breath, prayer-register for the Oshun aria. Small women's ensemble chorus in close harmony, call-and-response structure, dry and intimate mix without heavy reverb. Instrumentation: talking drum (dundun) at low pulse, shekere as sparse rhythmic texture, kora or mbira providing melodic undertone, no Western chord progressions — modal and pentatonic. Bass register provided by a single low-tuned djembe, sparse. No electric instruments, no synthesizers, no Western drum kit. Production is acoustic and ambient, recorded close to avoid room wash. The CODA dissolves into unaccompanied humming — all instruments drop befor

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02 · Male vocalWest African folk / roots blues

What the Soil Remembers

Verse 1

Yam mounds count themselves beneath my heel

My grandfather's name rides this clay

Baobab shadow falls on the burial ground —

The land is mine — I am the land's

Refrain

Roots hold, roots hold

The earth below my name

Roots hold

Verse 2

The boundary ridge carries my father's measure

I broke this furrow in my father's place

A man walked through with coast-dust on his feet

I gave him water and took nothing

Refrain

Roots hold, roots hold

The earth below my name

Roots hold

Bridge

Men with papers at the water's edge

Strange ships hang where the current bends south

The kola nut split wrong at dawn —

What the roots hold, let the roots hold now

Refrain

Roots hold, roots hold

The earth below my name

My shoes sink down — roots hold

Make this in Suno

West African folk, roots blues, acoustic world music, Track 2 of 12 in a through-composed narrative album set in Yorubaland 1838. Sparse instrumentation: acoustic kora as primary melodic voice, open resonant tuning, phrases answered by silence. Mbira threading underneath, high and precise. Djembe at low understated pulse, no fills, only the ground beat. Talking drum enters in bridge only, syncopated against the djembe, fracturing the rhythmic symmetry deliberately. Deep male baritone vocal, praise-call register in verses — half-spoken, intimate, the weight of someone reading aloud from memory. Refrain fully sung, chest voice, resonant on open vowels. Third refrain slightly rougher in grain, the vocal settling lower and slower, prayer replacing declaration. No reverb on vocal in verses — close and dry, the voice in the field. Refrain receives a single room-sized natural reverb, the s

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03 · Duet + choirIntimate acoustic folk / lullaby

The Children Are Sleeping

Listen — Sade has stopped her turning.

She breathes the way the deep field breathes at dusk.

Even in her sleep, she does not bend.

Emeka's arm is out again —

that boy flies when he is resting.

He lands. He lets go.

She reaches my ear now when she stands.

I have traced her height against the door-post.

The farm will ask him for a man's labor

before he knows what he wants to grow.

Ask me. I wasn't ready.

Do you remember the first rains here —

when you laughed and the whole yard filled with you,

when I —

When you —

I remember you —

Make this in Suno

Intimate acoustic folk lullaby, West African-rooted sparse acoustic, Yoruba-inflected singer-songwriter, present-day Nigeria meets Mississippi Delta ancestry, ballad tempo 54–58 BPM, 4/4, open-tuned acoustic guitar absent — replaced by mbira (thumb piano) plucked sparingly, djembe brushed with palm at near-silence, kora body struck once as resonant drone at opening, no melodic fill between phrases, maximum open space between lines, close-miked dual vocals — female mezzo-soprano conversational and warm, male baritone-tenor steady then fracturing, both voices dry with minimal reverb to convey physical intimacy, room tone of a sleeping house at night, dynamic arc begins at 2/10 and never rises above 4/10 until the final broken phrase which drops to 1/10 and silence, no percussion after the penultimate section, the final voice trails into pure room tone, the song ends not with a chord but wi

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04 · Male vocalPercussion-driven roots / avant-garde folk

Before the Rope

The dog went quiet before the gate swung wide

I was standing — the granary lock gripped in my fist

Not fire yet, not shouting — the grinding stone lay cold

The false light already on the wall

Two men, then six — the torch took the thatch

I stood to meet the first one

Drove my arms back till the shoulders ground

The cord found the bone — bit — found it again

She was there, turning

I called —

She turned toward the sound

Bound

A-da-e—

Ah—

...

No voice answers

Only the false dawn, reddening

The granary lock gripped in my fist

What I clenched

While the thatch came down

Make this in Suno

Through-composed avant-garde folk, West African roots, percussion-driven, sparse and fracturing. Track 4 of a continuous album arc — the percussion disintegrates across this track: djembe and talking drum begin in irregular, dissonant rhythmic hits, then drop away entirely by the ARIA. Kora melody enters briefly in the RECITATIVE and is cut mid-phrase, replaced by low ship-hull drone and creaking bowed strings — one cello, played sul ponticello, harsh and thin. Sparse dissonant prepared piano in the ARIOSO, single struck notes with no sustain. RECITATIVE sections: near-silence, only breath and bowed string. ARIOSO: percussive attack on each stressed syllable, djembe fracturing. ARIA: single cello drone, no percussion, deep male baritone near-spoken then dissolving. AFTERMATH: silence with one residual mbira note, struck once, fading. Male vocal: deep baritone, Nigerian resonance, control

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05 · Female vocalSparse acoustic / field-holler influenced

A Story for the Dark

Verse 1

Hold my arm.

This wood beneath us moves, but anchors —

Stay close.

Refrain 1

Far, far — we are going to a market,

cloth stacked high, the sellers calling out.

Far, far — where the indigo is waiting,

and we will go, and we will find our way.

Your father's there ahead of us —

he's saving us a place.

Verse 2

A smell moved past — green leaves — gone —

wide — wide — this water does not run, it swallows —

a river that forgot its banks, its name, its god —

no other shore.

The tree I closed my eyes to keep —

its shadow falls on water now.

Ko —

Not yet.

Keep your words below the water.

Refrain 2

Far, far — we are going to a market,

the cloth you wore, the smell of it —

Far, far — where the morning finds us rested —

Your shoes by the bed. Your shoes by the bed. Your shoes — by the bed.

Make this in Suno

Contemporary operatic art song, West African classical fusion, Track 5 of 12 on a concept album tracing the Middle Passage. Female soprano or high mezzo-soprano vocal — warm and controlled in the Aria sections, near-spoken in the Recitative, fractured and breathless in the Arioso. Instrumentation: kora melody cut mid-phrase and replaced by low hull-drone cello and sparse dissonant piano; djembe and talking drum fracturing into irregular, unmetered hits rather than steady pulse; creaking bowed strings simulating ship-hull; near-silence in the Fragmented Recitative section. No electronic production. Deep reverb in the hold — the sound bounces off wet wood. The Aria sections carry a ghost of melody the voice must hold alone against the percussion's dissolution. Final Aria strips back to voice and single mbira line, the melody returning quieter. Tempo: ballad, 4/4, but meter destabilizes in

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06 · Male vocalDelta blues / roots folk

They Called Me Charles

They call me Charles now.

Kolade goes.

Man put a mark on the ledger, ink over what I am

Put a mark on the ledger, cold as a stone on a grave

But under every name they press on me, mine has been saved

Mine has been saved, Lord — mine has been saved

I measure the angle of Sade's jaw in the morning air

Measure the angle of her jaw in the morning air

Emeka's small feet finding the furrow — I put them there

I put them there, I put them there

The man says Charles — I answer, feel the platform's ash

Man says Charles — I answer, feel the platform's ash

Ko-la-de sits low in my chest where no rope has been

Where no rope has been, Lord — where no rope has been

They cannot reach this far.

Kolade lives here.

Took the compound wall, the ridge path, took the water sound

Took every stone they could lay in the yard — not the ground

Not the ground below me — that they could not take

Adaeze's footfall settles in my chest along the road

Her footfall settles in my chest along the road

I hold their faces — map they cannot fold from here

The threshold cannot fold it — the threshold cannot fold

Charles answers, never stumbles, keeps his eyes upon the row

Answers, never stumbles, keeps his eyes upon the row

But Kolade counts his children in the dark before the rooster calls

Before the rooster calls, Lord — before the rooster calls

Make this in Suno

Delta blues, roots folk, historical Americana, track 6 of 12-track album arc. Deep baritone male vocal, field-holler delivery, spoken word interpolations almost toneless between sung blues verses. Raw single-coil electric blues guitar enters for the first time in the album — open-tuned, slide-adjacent, no reverb on the guitar itself, dry and immediate. Muted bass thud beneath, felt rather than heard. West African djembe and talking drum buried deep in the low end as ghost percussion, sub-bass presence only — a memory of the previous sonic world beneath the new one. No chord changes on the spoken sections — single root note drone. 12/8 time, mid-tempo, approximately 68 BPM swing feel. Sparse production — no fills, no ornamentation. The guitar answers each sung phrase with a single-note response, three beats, mirroring the name Ko-la-de. Final reprise drops dynamic to near-silence on the v

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07 · Female vocalBlues-inflected folk / spirituals tradition

What I Sing to Your Child

Sleep now, sleep — the night is soft and wide

Omi, omi — the water knows the tide

Close your eyes, small one — the lamp is going low

Ori mi, hear me — let the old ones know

Rock now, rock — I keep what is not mine

Ebi mi — my people past the pines

I name this rocking — I name it how I pray

Sade, Emeka — do you hear me where you stay

Hush now, hush — the dark is wide enough to hold

Ori mi — the dead know every child I've called

Ada rocks the stranger — Ada sings what she was taught

The gods of the door hear what the house gets wrong

Sleep, small stranger — I am not lost

Adaeze prays her children through the dark

Make this in Suno

Blues-inflected folk spiritual, American roots, 1840s-inspired. Female alto vocal, warm and ceremonial, controlled hush throughout with one moment of tightened suppressed intensity at the pivot couplet. Solo open-tuned acoustic guitar, sparse fingerpicked drone rather than melodic runs — strings ring open. Single cello sustaining unresolved tones beneath the vocal. Hand-struck frame drum keeping a barely-audible 12/8 pulse, like a heartbeat in another room. No bass guitar — the bottom end lives in the cello drone. Reverb is natural, as if recorded in a wooden room with high ceilings — spatial but not washed. No percussion hits. No production sheen. Tempo: slow ballad, approximately 52-58 BPM. Key: D minor or E minor modal. Atmosphere: intimate, grave, ceremonially restrained. Dynamic arc: sparse opening, barely-audible swell at Couplet VI, return to near-silence at the final couplet. The

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08 · Male vocalAmericana folk / blues-adjacent

The Word for River

Verse 1

Turns before Samuel finishes — Samuel

The word came fast, before his feet

He tries the Yoruba for white

Finds English filling up its place

Verse 2

Fills his mouth with cotton-row counting

He loses the Yoruba word for one

He knows his grandmother's jaw, the angle of it

But Adekunle arrives already twisted

Chorus

Knows the word for river

Can't remember which one

Both names in his mouth now

One of them's almost gone

Verse 3

"Samuel. Move along." He moves

The way a word goes when the shape is gone

Tried to say the baobab to himself

Cotton came out instead — dry, at his lips

Bridge

Omi, omi, omi

Omi, omi

Verse 4

He says it now in English, mostly

The fields don't ask which name is real

He keeps the river-word inside him

The way a seed keeps what it was, underground

Chorus

Knows the word for river

Can't remember which one

Both names in his mouth now

One of them's almost gone

Outro

Almost gone

Almost —

Make this in Suno

Americana folk blues, sparse acoustic ballad, 1840s plantation South atmosphere, male child tenor vocal, unpolished and unguarded delivery, near-spoken verses rising to a held question on the chorus, open-tuned acoustic guitar in DADGAD or open D, single sustained drone chord through the Yoruba bridge, no percussion until the bridge where a quiet frame drum enters and exits, brushed or fingertip-only rhythm, no bass guitar — upright bass if any, bowed and very low in the mix, raw room reverb, dry close-mic vocal with minimal processing, tempo slow ballad 60-68 BPM, key of D major or D modal, atmosphere of flat heat and silence, dynamic arc from intimate half-spoken verse to open-air sustained chorus, bridge drops to near a cappella with single sustained guitar chord, outro trails to silence on the em-dash, no resolution, no fade, hard stop on breath, historical emotional weight without c

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09 · Duet + choirGospel-blues / roots soul

What Isaiah Knows

Verse 1

Step where I step — the third board from the post

That's the one that keeps its tongue

Silas turns his lantern north when darkness pools —

That's your window, girl — you seal it in

My jacket moved — something crossed the yard

You pulled me back before I gave him sound

My father's name was Kolade — not Charles

And every road I walked, I walk it as his daughter

Chorus

Keep it past the cold

Tuck it past the tongue where no name reaches

What they peel from the outside

Can't reach what we keep alive — inside

Verse 2

Pine grove, north side, after second bell

Come with nothing they can open, nothing they can name

We pour the grief that would give us away

Into that one hour — before it burns you in the field

Pine grove — I've already got it

You've carried twenty years and didn't let it show

My mother kept the name past the dark

Teach me how to last — I've already held it

Bridge

They named everything they could see. Let them.

Adaeze. Say it where the air won't carry.

Not here. Not where the air can hold it against you.

I've been saying it since the yard. I said it quiet.

Chorus

Keep it past the cold

Tuck it past the tongue where no name reaches

What they peel from the outside

Can't reach what we keep alive — inside

What they peel from the outside

Can't reach what we press — Adaeze — alive

Make this in Suno

Gospel-blues roots soul, 1840s-inspired sacred vernacular tradition, slow deliberate tempo approximately 56 BPM, 4/4 time, key of D minor. Male bass-baritone lead vocal in recitative sections — sparse, measured, each phrase separated by sustained silence. Female mezzo-soprano in arioso sections — warmer, melodic line rising on identity words, not trembling but precise. Unison duet refrain — two voices locking into a shared rhythmic heartbeat. Choir enters only on final refrain — not triumphant gospel shout but gathered, close-harmony, prayer-circle warmth. Instrumentation: sustained Hammond organ drone in D minor throughout, low and unhurried; upright bass walking in slow quarter-note pulse; occasional brushed snare on beat 3; sparse slide guitar responding to the vocal lines between phrases, never dominating. No drums until the final refrain, where a slow kick anchors the choir. Product

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10 · Female vocalIntimate soul / blues ballad

The Cloth I Keep

I take up the cloth,

dark before the bell —

she said: Say the letter. Say it again.

Adaeze. Here.

Ko-la-de, sewn in cloth,

where no name gets spoken —

Ko-la-de, my Kolade.

Not Charles. Not lost.

Sa-de, jaw set hard,

who was given only dust —

Sa-de, my Sade,

who did not bend.

E-me-ka, come here —

your mother calls to you.

E-me-ka, say it back.

Say it back.

Ada answers when they call.

Adaeze answers me.

Adaeze — I say it slow,

to feel the name hold whole.

All four of us, in this cloth.

In this cloth, alive.

I seal the fold against my side.

I do not know if you are breathing.

What you hide is what survives.

Kolade does not die in cloth.

Make this in Suno

Intimate soul blues ballad, sparse neo-soul production, 1840s American South interior setting rendered through acoustic emotional space. Female alto-mezzo lead vocal, near-spoken in recitative passages with minimal vibrato, opening to sustained melodic tone in aria sections; ghost harmony vocal enters beneath the lead only in the ensemble section, no louder than ambient breath. Instrumentation: sustained organ drone at extreme low volume, single upright bass or cello bowing long tones, no percussion, no drums. BPM: ballad, approximately 52-58. Key: D minor or E-flat minor. Reverb: intimate room reverb, no cathedral or hall — the sound of a small enclosed space before dawn. Dynamics: begins near-silence, builds through accumulation of names, reaches fullest at ensemble, strips back to nearly unaccompanied voice for coda. Atmosphere: pre-dawn dark, austerity, controlled grief, defiant inte

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11 · Male vocalBlues / West African folk fusion

Kolade Is Still Here

Verse 1

Before the bell I lay the hoe aside

Clay dark and quiet, clay turns cold and wide

I say the name they gave me — hear it land

Then say my own name back into the dark

Verse 2

The cotton grows up tall from old red clay

The baobab runs its roots the other way

Two roots in one earth — neither one erased

What grows below don't answer to what's placed

Chorus

Kolade — said slow into the dark

Adaeze's man, anchored to his mark

Kolade — Charles is only what they see

She breathes across the Homochitto — she knows me

Verse 3

My palms have memorized the furrow's line

The season's turn, the patience of the vine

Charles does the work — Kolade counts the days

Between the rows, unseen — and he remains

Chorus

Kolade — said slow into the dark

Adaeze's man, anchored to his mark

Kolade — Charles is only what they see

She breathes across the Homochitto — she knows me

Bridge

One: the way Abeokuta smells before the rain

Two: Adaeze's name in Yoruba, how it sits

Three: the furrow width my father knew before this soil

Four: Emeka's face the morning of the ship

What my arms knew before this ground — I count it all

Outro

They call me Charles

And Charles does what he must

But when the field goes quiet —

Kolade.

Make this in Suno

Blues and West African folk fusion, album track 11 of 12, slow to mid tempo around 68 BPM, key of D minor. Deep resonant male baritone, measured and deliberate, chest voice dominant, no falsetto, no melisma, controlled vibrato only at chorus sustains. Instrumentation: Delta blues acoustic guitar fingerpicked in low register, kora re-entering faintly beneath the guitar and threading through verse breaks and chorus responses — two sonic worlds meeting at last. Brushed hand percussion, sparse, no snare crack. Muted bass thud underneath. Choir voices enter low and sustained beneath the second chorus, wordless, grounding the declaration. Bridge is spoken-adjacent, faster syllabic delivery over stripped percussion. Outro: solo mbira only beneath spoken voice, single plucked notes, wide reverb, long decay into silence. Production: warm analog compression, dry vocal in verses with slight room re

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12 · Female vocalWest African folk / Delta blues / gospel

Two Rivers, One Name

Adaeze — Ada — one woman carried in two sounds

Kolade — Charles — one man this country renamed

Sade — daughter — older than the line they wrote beside her

Sade is the name I called her at the river

The other name they placed on her at the gate

Sade keeps both — she carries the water and the gate

The second name came in but did not replace

Emeka. Samuel. Two beats in one body.

He lost his mother tongue for one — I watched it go

I speak both names into the air

So what he forgot can find its way home

The river that carried our first names

The Mississippi ran until I called it mine

Kolade. Charles. The man who read the sky before the planting

Both waters carry him — one by each name

Adaeze. Ada. Kolade. Charles.

Sade. Emeka. Samuel.

The first river and the Mississippi —

All of them mine.

None of them gone.

Coda

I am the woman with all the names pressed in my palms

Before the mockingbird begins its first cry

I do not choose — I open. Both remain.

And dawn opens each one whole.

Make this in Suno

West African folk meets Delta blues meets gospel spiritual, operatic finale form — female alto-soprano solo vocal, ceremonial and half-spoken in recitative, rising to held unresolved melody in aria, percussive and dense in arioso, braided and harmonic in duet, stripped and witnessing in ensemble, near-breathed in coda. Instrumentation arc: kora re-emerging faintly beneath blues guitar and layered choir voices in opening sections, all instruments receding through ensemble until coda strips to single voice and one mbira line, sparse plucked tones beneath the final sustained vowel, then total silence as final note. Slow ceremonial tempo, 4/4, no percussion in coda. Production is open and resonant throughout — generous reverb on the voice, dry and intimate on the mbira. The two sonic worlds of the album (West African and Delta) braid without merging. No drums in coda. Female vocals, mezzo-so

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Next showcase album: The Grief Is Smaller Than the Room

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