Always on
This project successfully funded on 23rd June 2025, you can still support them with a donation.
I AM PROUD Community Project
Bristol, Bristol City, United Kingdom
Aim: Record the I AM PROUD single with a supergroup and launch the COMMUNITY PROJECT inviting up to 1000 people to harmonise with us digitally.
Inspired by her 1851 ‘Ain’t I a Woman’ speech, I wrote the I AM PROUD song in tribute to Sojourner Truth, a pioneering advocate for equality. The ambition is for this song to be sung all over the world, in celebration of Sojourner Truth, in celebration of all that identify as women and as a continued call for equality and equity for everyone.
I AM PROUD - SINGLE
I am honoured that a true supergroup of female identifying and gender neutral artists have agreed to collaborate with me to record and release I AM PROUD as a single. Leonie Evans, Angeline Morrison, Amrit Kaur, Bianca Wilson, Rhiannon Takel, myself Lizi Morse and some very special guests will record the song in harmony.
I AM PROUD - COMMUNITY PROJECT
When we release the single, we will then invite a global community of up to 1000 people to digitally collaborate. Each person will chose their favourite part, film themselves singing it and upload it to our I AM PROUD COMMUNITY PROJECT website. These films will then be stitched and mastered together so that 1000 people, from across the globe can be seen and heard singing together in harmony. This will also be platformed digitally on the website, on social media and via partners webpages.
We will then screen this digital collaboration with some of the supergroup performing it live on International Women's Day 2026.
I am genuinely spellbound that these incredible vocalists have agreed to collaborate with me. So I call upon you to help me make this happen.
The most important thing, that needs to happen so that the I AM PROUD International Women's Day event happens next year, is that the single is recorded and released. To do this, I need to pay the vocalists for their time and a sound engineer to record and master it.
It feels like there is already momentum behind the I AM PROUD Community Project, with over 150 people signed up and ready and raring to get involved. We want to make the Community Project free to access and hope to get people involved from anywhere in the world! Abbie Darley - Creative Director and Videographer, designed the Longest John's Community Projects and is the expert in syncing and mixing 1000 films of singers. It is no mean feat!
If you are interested in signing up to be involved in the I AM PROUD Community project CLICK HERE or drop an email to [email protected] and we will let you know once it is up and running. You do not need to donate to this fundraiser to get involved.
The I AM PROUD SINGLE & COMMUNITY PROJECT promotes equality and solidarity with Black Lives Matter and LGBTQIA+ movements. We need this sense of connection, now more than ever.
BUDGET
- £3400 Musician fees for learning, recording and filming single.
- £1000 Recording and mastering single
£4400 - Single - Target 1
- £700 Build Community Project Website & Branding
- £3500 Community Project - filming parts and instruction videos then stitching 1000 singers together
- £1000 Mixing and mastering 1000 singers in Community Project
£9600 - Community Project - Target 2
- £1500 PR Campaign
- £2500 Press Photography and Music Video
- £3000 Outreach workshops, inviting people to respond with stories, image and song about who inspires hope in them.
£16600 - Press and Outreach - Target 3 (Stretch Target)
I am determined to make the I AM PROUD Community Project happen and whatever we manage to raise in this crowdfunder, will greatly bolster the funding bids I am putting in, as it proves that there is support, that people want it to happen and want to get involved. So with this in mind, our first target is to get the single recorded, so if we can raise a minimum of £4400 we will be able to confirm the I AM PROUD International Woman's Day 2026 event. Whatever we raise will be used as match funding, and keeping Sojourner Truth's impressive story as inspiration, will use some grit and make it happen.
The aim is for people to sing this song, in celebration of Sojourner Truth, in celebration of all who identify as women, non-binary and trans people and to continue to strive for equality and stand against oppression.
SOJOURNER TRUTH
Sojourner Truth was born into slavery in Swartekill, New York around 1797 (enslaved children's births were not recorded). She freed herself and one of her daughters in 1826 by walking away from her slavers with pride and dignity. She died in 1883 having lived an extraordinary life standing up against racism and sexism simultaneously.
In 1851 Sojourner Truth attended the Ohio Women's Rights Convention. She was moved to address the crowd, to stand up for the human rights of women. Her words were poignant and over time were written and logged by many sources, later becoming know as the "Ain't I a Woman?" speech.
Sojourner Truth spent a lifetime standing up for the human rights of both people of colour and women. She spoke out at a time when black men were trying to get the vote and white women were trying to get the vote. These two groups, rather than supporting each others struggle, were pitted in competition. Sojourner Truth sought to demonstrate that men and women, regardless of their race, are equal. She was in the minority, and she spoke out, proudly, for everyone.
The autonomy and freedom that we enjoy today, rest on the shoulders of magnificent women such as this. We must continue to seek the equality and equity of everyone.
I AM PROUD Song and Zine
The I AM PROUD zine, is a pamphlet that celebrates Sojourner Truth and folds open to reveal a song sheet on the inside. This was exhibited in the Royal West Academy Summer Exhibition 2024.
To get an understanding of who I will be collaborating with check out the videos and links below. I am soo excited to hear our voices together...
LEONIE EVANS
Leonie Evans is a singer songwriter and multi instrumentalist. Her Collaborations albums have connected her with outstanding musicians from all over the world. She is fully immersed in her music and is a firm favourite of BBC Radio 6 Cerys Matthews and BBC Radio 2 Jamie Cullum. Vocalist at the BBC Proms for Abel Selaocoe. Session Musician for Over the Garden Wall short by Cartoon Network / Aardman. Voice of an angel, mouth trumpet extraordinaire.
ANGELINE MORRISON
Angeline Morrison is a singer, multi-instrumentalist and songwriter whose work combines a deep love of traditional song, a deep respect for the hidden ancestral voices of Old Albion, explorations and reimaginings of diaspora, nation and history, and a strong belief in magic and enchantment as powerful charms for decoloniality. Angeline Morrison, one of MOJO's 'voices taking folk into the future', winner of the prestigious Christian Raphael Prize and her album The Sorrow Songs: Folk Songs of Black British Experience was voted No 1 Folk album of the year in The Guardian 2022. She appeared on BBC2's Later With Jools Holland.
AMRIT KAUR
Amrit Kaur's music has been described as 'the place where Punjabi folk meets Aretha soul' by OZY magazine. She is a singer-songwriter and Sarangi player. Hailing from Tottenham, she has commanded the stages of the UN General Assembly, Glastonbury Festival and Jaipur Literature Festival. Her music brings together the culture of Panjabi women with the sounds of jazz, blues and soul.
LIZI MORSE
Alongside folk aficionados Nick Hart and Anna Cornish, Lizi Morse hosts the ever popular Folk Song Session @ George & Dragon Redfield. As an emerging songwriter Lizi Morse’s key highlight was supporting Ríoghnach Connelly at The Mount Without Bristol and hearing Heartwood Chorus sing her song with her at St Georges Hall. Her a capella folk duo Bowker & Morse, are at once comfortingly familiar and intriguingly new. Their self-penned lyrics frame the old things in new ways, and the perfectly complementary vocals create something soaring and beautiful. Lizi was a session singer for Dizraeli Lullabies project at the Bristol Beacon 2024 and with the Aggie Boys Choir at the Lorient stadium in the Interceltique Festival 2015.
BIANCA WILSON
AKA Island girl is a multi-instrumentalist and singer from south London. Focusing mainly on the Banjo & on a quest into a sound rooted in celebrating diasporic experience; Journeying through the different musical epochs of traditional music & incorporating that into her personal style.
https://www.instagram.com/island_____girl/
RHIANNON TAKEL
Rhiannon Takel is a Bristol based folk singer, composer and multi-instrumentalist. She is one third of dark folk trio Craven, whose music is heavily textural, narrative and programmatic. Her composing work also uses pictorial, textural sounds, and includes commissions for the Queer Britain Museum.