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Essay, News

Paris Palomas’ Labour is the feminist anthem women have been waiting for

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In recent years, music hasn’t served women. Thousands of songs get released yearly, but only few of them make a positive impact on women’s lives. The majority, especially rap music, made it their goal to objectify women. It became the norm for a song to discuss a woman’s body or insult a woman. Clubs played such songs. The rise of TikTok brought forth a new wave in how music spread. But this wave didn’t leave a positive impact on women’s lives. Instead, TikTok music became a genre criticized by many. A song was reduced to 20 seconds and its worth was based on whether it went viral or not. That is until Paris Paloma released a new song.

In March 2023, Paloma started teasing a song that was different from the majority of songs found on TikTok. The rallying cry in the song, titled “Labour”, was a hint at what was to come. A foreshadowing of sorts. Labour gradually spread all over TikTok but for the right reasons. It wasn’t a song made to objectify women, but rather, a song that was made to unite them. It was a feminist battle cry.

The chorus made the rounds on TikTok, and suddenly you found yourself memorizing the lyrics. Women found it easy to learn the words Paloma sang because they were inspired by their own lives.

“All day, every day, therapist, mother, maid / Nymph then a virgin, nurse then a servant / Just an appendage, live to attend him / So that he never lifts a finger / 24∕7, baby machine / So he can live out his picket fence dreams / It’s not an act of love if you make her / You make me do too much labour” 

These words moved women all over the globe and the rest of the lyrics transcended any barriers language could possibly create. Suddenly, women came forth to share the message included in the reality of all women. A reality filled with misogyny, domestic violence, sexual violence, and other things that no one wishes to understand from a young age.

Paloma’s song didn’t just unite women, it changed the way TikTok songs were perceived. It wasn’t a song made to move bodies, it was made to move minds – which it did. The success Labour found only increased after the full version was released. The song passed all of Paloma’s expectations, and suddenly it had a life of its own. “It’s become something that’s a lot bigger than me,” the Derbyshire-born artist told NME in an interview. 

The rallying cry in Labour isn’t the only interesting part, but the lyrics themselves hold a kind of power that women need. These lyrics were shouted by women from everywhere as they faced the same wall with barbed wires. It’s a wall made of systemic gender inequality, sexual violence, physical violence, objectification, and many more terrors that form shadows in womanhood. It’s a wall that stands between women and freedom, between women and safety. Women’s movements have been making cracks in this wall for centuries, but it’s not broken yet. Paloma’s Labour made its own cracks in this wall as women kept shouting the song.

Labour has been embraced by women no matter where they are from or how old they are, because the nightmares women live have no language or age restrictions. Paloma’s powerful lyrics can be seen from many roads, and every road leads to the same end. A destination where women have a song that understands the ugly side of being a woman. This side is forced upon women, and Paloma is one more woman who knows this well. 

One of these roads is the simple one where the lyrics can be looked at and understood at first glance because women’s pain doesn’t need a dictionary. Another road is that of double meanings, and this adds to the beauty of Labour. Women’s abuse has been normalized to the point where it has layers, and Paloma captures these layers. The word “labour” doesn’t just mean the tasks women are forced to do as if their only worth is cleaning and cooking. It also implies how women’s worth is reduced based on whether they are capable of childbirth or not. In Egypt, many women face verbal abuse because they are infertile. The same women might go through divorce because their husbands care only about having a child.

@parispalomaofficial

Hearing all of you, together, singing this song at a time like this, is the most moving and powerful thing. I love you all and we have power in our shared voices. #women #feminism #patriarchy #womanhood #misogyny #toomuchlabour #womensrights

♬ LABOUR – the cacophony – Paris Paloma

The double meanings continue in “Just an appendage, live to attend him / So that he never lifts a finger.” Many men get with women not because of love, but because they are looking for someone to serve them. They don’t want to lift a finger. The other heartbreaking meaning is that many women have to serve men or else they will be abused. Both meanings are true no matter how ugly they are, and women are tired of experiencing them.

“Women are just doing more and more, and men are not doing any more than they’ve ever done. There’s still expectation for women to have this very traditional archaic role as a caregiver and a servant and a wife and a mother and a homemaker,but women have had enough of existing to serve other people,” Paloma said in an interview with Big Issue.

Labour documented women’s experiences in around four minutes, but these experiences have been around for ages. This is why the song feels like it carries years of ancestral rage. It’s an anthem that can fit in any era. It isn’t weakened by the restrictions of time. It isn’t just a song.

Labour is a lot more. It’s a shout, a rallying cry, an anthem, a song representing female rage, and many more things. All these things brought women together and formed a community where pain is shared because women feel it together. It is a song that can inspire change, and Paloma believes that music can cause change. 

“I feel like a small part in a big community that has grown around my music. I’m incredibly humbled by it, and watching how people take and grow a song that you feel is important – how could that not inspire social change?” Paloma said in an interview with Notion.

But Paloma wants the song to be about more than female rage. “I think I want them [people] to feel heard, or held, and whether they’re listening to something like ‘Labour’ and it’s something so angry, I want them to feel like their anger is valid. If it’s something else, I want them to feel comforted, if it makes them cry I want them to feel held while they do that. I hope that my music can serve as a vehicle for a protective sphere in which to feel any emotions that need to be felt,” she said in her NME interview.

Women are angry, but they are more than that, and that anger “doesn’t need to be romanticised.” It doesn’t need to be romanticized because women are more than their anger. They are hopeful, dreamy, courageous, beautiful, understanding, united, honest, loving, caring, amazing, and many more qualities. Qualities that aren’t appreciated by men and the patriarchal society that we live in. 

Despite common belief, Labour is also directed at men. 

“I am so moved at how empowered so many women feel through my music, and also how reflective a lot of men are when they listen to it, it’s the ideal response,” Paloma said.

“It [making change] starts with holding men and boys accountable for this behaviour, and making it less normalised and making them sort of aware that their actions or lack thereof have consequences. You don’t get to be in a relationship and treat another person like less than a human being and then be blindsided when that person wants to end that relationship.”

“I’ve got several messages from men who’ve realized [from the song] that they should be doing better in relationships,” Paloma says. “That’s amazing. Because I keep getting asked, ‘What can we do to solve this?’ And it’s not up to women: That’s the whole point. It’s up to men to listen and to take action,” Paloma told Billboard.

“Men should be picking up the slack.”

Even if the wall built by our patriarchal society won’t be brought down by Labour, and even if men don’t listen to Paloma’s cry, it’s enough that women have this song. It’s enough if this song makes cracks in that barbed wall instead of bringing it down.

Paloma’s concerts shifted after Labour’s release. They became a place where this community created by the song could thrive. Hundreds of women found a safe space in Paloma’s concerts to shout as loud as they wanted. Then, a new version of Labour was necessary to imitate how the chorus sounded like as hundreds of women shouted it. 

A year after the release of Labour, Paloma asked her followers to send her recordings of them singing the song, and women from different backgrounds and ages met her request. Paloma then re-recorded the song, but this time her voice was accompanied by the voices of hundreds of women. The new version was titled “Labour (The Cacophony)” and it was part of Paloma’s Cacophony album. 

If Labour was powerful in the first version, it became a lot better in the new version. Labour (The Cacophony) was the last chapter in a beautiful tale. The sounds of hundreds of women from all over the world coming together to recreate this feminist anthem. The different ages portrayed the truth about being a woman: the cycle of abuse and trauma starts from a very young age. 

Another truth regarding Labour is that Paloma is the perfect artist to create such a song. With her background in fine art and history, her lyricism is unique and powerful. The singer-songwriter previously shared that Labour draws from Madeline Miller’s Circe. The gothic and powerful feelings in the song are probably inspired by how Florence Welch and Hozier influenced her. 

Just like Labour (The Cacophony) made many voices become one, Paloma’s songs bring many genres together. 

“I don’t feel very pigeonholed, and when I think about my genre, I think about so many words like ‘indie’, ‘folk’, ‘alternative’, ‘singer-songwriter’… I get ‘witch-pop’ sometimes. I’m looking forward to not being so prescribed to any single one thing,” she told NME.

Along with not prescribing Paloma to one genre, we can’t tie her to just Labour. She has other songs with strong themes and many of them talk about female experiences. 

In “last woman on earth,” Paloma sings about how women aren’t safe even when they are dead and buried.

“That song [“last woman on earth”] is an entire metaphor for the way that people talk about women, view them and treat them. It’s so harrowing that that doesn’t even end in their death at all, whether it’s people like Marilyn Monroe or Amy Winehouse; they will continue to be exploited. It’s something that a lot of women and queer people are becoming incredibly vocal about, and the lack of tolerance that there should be for that. On a personal level, it’s the part of the album that deals with the role that patriarchal violence has played in stunting my personal growth. There’s just so much pain in that song that shouldn’t have to be there,” Paloma told DIY Magazine.

While in “boys, bugs and men” Paloma describes the ugly truth of how many men find delight in women’s pain and having power over them, or as Paloma described it “the quiet sadism of misogyny.”

But Paloma’s songs aren’t just about the ugly side of being a woman, there are ones about the beauty of it too such as “knitting song” which discusses female friendships. While “as good a reason” is “a song about the power of women learning from each other” as Paloma described it.

A trend in Paloma’s body of work is that all her songs are intertwined. “I think of my songs informing each other now rather than being specific. It’s now this considered thing which all have relationships to each other and inform each other. My next songs stand on the shoulders of my previous songs,” she said in her interview with Dork.

Just like Labour feels eternal, so does Paloma’s success. The song reached the Top 30 of the UK singles chart, but this is just the beginning for someone with Paloma’s talent, especially since she only started releasing songs towards the end of 2020. Even if Paloma won’t have any other song reach Labour’s success, it might be enough for her that she created a space for women to be heard.

Paris Paloma created the feminist anthem women have been looking for.

Essay, History

Beats of Defiance

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From the streets of Khartoum to exile abroad, Sudanese hip-hop artists have turned music into a powerful tool for protest, resilience, and the preservation of collective memory.

The streets of Khartoum in December 2018 were not just crowded—they were buzzing with life. Voices rang out in defiance, marking the end of three decades under Omar al-Bashir’s authoritarian grip. It was a revolution, but it was also a revelry of the spirit. A hidden energy, repressed too long, spilled onto the streets, transmuting protest into art. The sound of resistance in Sudan was not a single note but an orchestra of beats, rhymes, and chants—and the sound of Sudanese hip-hop. Hip-hop had simmered underground for years, but now, it erupted into a national chorus, becoming a vehicle for the expression of the hopes, grievances, and dreams of Sudan’s youth.

Ayman Mao was among the first to carry the torch. His track “Dam” (Blood) from 2016 had already gained traction; a gritty and furious indictment against the powers that exploited the people: “How much did they buy you for, so that you can turn it into blood?”

Mao’s words resonated with thousands, transforming his lyrics into rallying cries for those now gathered in protest. This was not just a song but a haunting reminder that their blood had been shed during their resistance against the Bashir regime. As his lyrics bounced from building to building, they fused with the chants of the crowd, a single voice shouting enough.

Mao’s impact was only the beginning. Flippter, a Sudanese rapper who had long explored themes of alienation and struggle, joined the front lines with his track “Hatred.” “Might get a bullet for these simple words,” he rapped, fully aware of the risks. In his track “Blue,” he describes a homeland that feels foreign, echoing the sense of displacement that Sudanese youth felt under a regime that cared little for their voices. With each verse, Flippter exposes not only his anger but also his refusal to be silenced, a poet who embraced the pen as a weapon. Sudan’s youth found something vital in Flippter’s words—an unflinching mirror reflecting both their frustration and their resolve.

Diaspora voices joined in, with artists like AKA Keyz, who, from afar, could still feel the pulse of the homeland. His track “No Options Left” became an anthem of its own, a bleak yet determined reflection of the state of Sudan. “No options left,” he repeats, voicing the despair and hopelessness that Sudanese youth felt as they watched their nation unravel.

These modern voices were joined by icons from the past, blending tradition with rebellion. A.G Nimeri’s “Sudan Without Keizan” echoed across the revolution, a song imagining a Sudan freed from the grip of corruption, racism, and religious manipulation. “Sudan without merchants of hell and heaven,” he sings, condemning those who used religion to justify violence and control. Nimeri’s music bridged generations, evoking a Sudan that existed before Bashir’s rule while dreaming of a future without it. His song, like so many others, became a soundtrack for revolution, articulating the shared yearning for a new Sudan.

The roots of Sudanese hip-hop stretch back further than the 2018 protests. In the 1990s, American rap tapes circulated as bootlegs, slipping past government censors and sparking the imaginations of young Sudanese. By the 2000s, artists like the group NasJota had fused hip-hop with traditional Sudanese sounds, blending Arabic and English lyrics to create something distinctly Sudanese. Their success was short-lived, however, as government censors quickly silenced their socially conscious lyrics. Artists like Mao were forced into exile, but the spirit of protest they had ignited continued underground, shaping a generation of young people who saw music as a form of rebellion. By 2018, Sudanese hip-hop had made such an impact that GQ produced a list of almost 20 rappers that it wanted its readers to know about, including Bas and Flippter.

In 2019, as the protests reached their peak, Sudanese hip-hop transformed from an underground movement to the heartbeat of the uprising. Mao’s “Dam” and Ali G’s “Taskut Bas” (Just Fall) blared from speakers in protest camps, the lyrics striking raw nerves as they condemned corruption, repression, and violence. But hip-hop was not just the backdrop; it was the movement itself, a thread weaving together thousands of voices in a shared demand for freedom.

Then, in 2023, hope turned to tragedy as violence erupted once again. The simmering tensions between the Sudanese Armed Forces and the Rapid Support Forces ignited into civil war, and the country was engulfed in chaos. Artists found themselves displaced, with some forced to flee. But even as studios lay abandoned and streets emptied, the music continued. Hip-hop artists in exile, in Egypt and across the diaspora, kept creating, their voices reaching back home and keeping the spirit of the revolution alive.

New platforms like Rap Shar3 (Streetrap) became vital spaces for Sudanese rappers in exile, where artists poured their anguish into verse. Hyper’s song, echoing Sayed Khalifa’s iconic chorus, reflects on those days of revolution with both nostalgia and bitterness. “Those were days, O country, days like the dream,” he sings, mourning what could have been, even as he curses those who have ruined those dreams.

And new voices emerged—Veto, Awab, Ghayaz—documenting in verse the personal toll of war. “My brother was shot dead but is not buried yet,” Veto raps, his words an indictment of those in power. It’s a painful, raw reminder that for many Sudanese, freedom remains distant, as if glimpsed only briefly before being snatched away again. These songs became not just records of protest but oral histories, documenting the suffering of a people in real-time.

Sudanese hip-hop has emerged not only as a form of rebellion but also as a repository of the nation’s collective memory. What began as borrowed beats from American rap tapes has evolved into a genre that is uniquely Sudanese, defined by the local language, the rhythms of traditional folk music, and the cadences of Sudanese Arabic. The genre has forged its own identity, producing a sound that resonates deeply with listeners across Africa.

Now, as Sudan stands at a crossroads, the role of hip-hop has never been more critical. These artists—both those at home and those in exile—continue to create, documenting their stories and struggles. In doing so, they ensure that even as the country spirals, the voices of Sudan’s youth will not be forgotten.

This article was written by Ibrahim Osman and re-published here from the Africa Is A Country website under a CC BY 4.0 Attribution 4.0 International license. Cover photo: Flippter and fans. Image © Flippter via Facebook (Fair Use).

Essay, History

Music activism in Sudan

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Music and politics in Sudan have been intertwined for many decades. During the colonial era, musicians played a key role in the struggle for independence. Later on, as music was embraced by the masses, successive post-colonial governments sought to clamp down its influence on politics and society.

Sudanese music legend Mohammed Wardi.

Since the onset of the Second Sudanese Civil War in 1983, the government began increasingly censoring musicians, leaving many artists frustrated over their freedom of expression. As musicians fought for artistic freedom, many of them faced state oppression, which ranged from bans on public performances to physical attacks, with many forced to flee the country.

Activism in pre-independence Sudan

Musicians have contributed immensely to Sudanese culture and have used their public presence to magnify the country’s rich cultural diversity and socio-political conditions. Artists played a crucial role in fuelling the resistance against foreign intrusion, exploitation and dictatorships during both the colonial and post-colonial periods.

As early as 1924, poet and educator Obeid Abdul Nur’s poem ‘Umm Dhafayir’ (The Lady with Plaited Hair) challenged young people to rise up and fight the British colonial administration. The poem would later inspire musicians to highlight the plight of the masses in their songs.

Established in 1938 to challenge colonialism, the Graduates’ General Congress, an association of the educated class, adopted the song ‘Sahi Ya Kanari’ (Wake Up, Canary) and others to enhance its campaign for reforms and to expedite the end of British colonial rule.

Hawa Jah al-Rasoul Mohammed, popularly known as Hawa al-Tagtaga, was one of the earliest female music pioneers and is remembered as a fearless freedom fighter whose politically charged songs inspired the anti-colonial struggle. 

Aisha Musa Ahmad, also known as Aisha al-Falatiya, made a name for herself as a singer during the Second World War when she toured the camps of the Sudan Defence Force across North Africa to boost troop morale. 

Activism in post-independence Sudan

On 1 January 1956, Anglo-Egyptian Sudan became the independent Republic of Sudan. Since independence, Sudan has been ruled by a series of unstable parliamentary governments and military regimes.

Respected singer Mohammed Wardi’s song ‘October Al Akhdar’ (Green October) was performed during the 1964 revolution when power transitioned from military to civilian rule. The song urged the government to concentrate on agriculture, hence the reference of ‘green’ in the title of the song [2].

Another military coup in May 1969 brought military ruler Jaafar Nimeiry to power. At first, Wardi agreed with the new administration, due to its leftist leanings, but later had a fallout with its leaders and was detained in 1971. In 1983, Nimeiry imposed a strict version of Islamic Sharia law, which further diminished the influential voices of musicians and poets in the country.

In response, Wardi released another political song, ‘Ya Sha’aban Lahabak Thouritak’, which loosely translates to ‘Oh People Your Flame Is Your Revolution’. The song encouraged the masses to shape their own destiny. The regime then called for his imprisonment and the artist fled to the US before moving to Cairo, Egypt. He returned home before passing away in 2012 at the age of 79. 

Enemies of the state

Sudanese governments throughout the years have sought to influence musicians for their own political agendas. Artists whose songs and lyrics expose social issues such as poverty, disease, civil war and injustices have historically been branded as ‘enemies of the state’, with various governments taking drastic measures to suppress ‘dissident voices’.

By the 1990s, during the early days of former president Omar al-Bashir’s rule, the government removed off the airwaves all music that did not support political and religious ideology. Singer Abu Araki al-Bakheit was banned from performing political songs. He was arrested and forbidden to perform publicly, after which he retired. News of his retirement prompted intense reactions from his fans, which eventually led him to continue performing in defiance of the authorities. He played with nightclub bands like Rejaf Jazz and The Skylarks. 

Female musicians have also suffered government attacks and threats by the Sudanese public who accused them of crossing gender lines by exposing their bodies in spite of Sharia’s rules.

Female musicians like Hanan Bulu Bulu were harassed and detained by government authorities, while groups such as Al Balabil came under close surveillance in the 1970s and the 1980s. Al Balabil was formed by three Nubian sisters, and although their songs were banned under Sharia, the group found a large audience in Ethiopia and other African countries.

In 1998, the National Islamic Front government enacted a new law banning women from dancing with men, or in their presence, during folklore celebrations or wedding parties.

Singer Abazar Hamid suffered the wrath of Bashir after he embarked on a solo career in 2004. His 2007 album Sabahak Rabah (Good Morning Home), which discusses a wide range of topics such as peace, unity and genocide, led to his exile due to direct threats on his freedom. 

Sudanese poet, composer and writer Mahjoub Sharif was well known for advocating for gender equality and against dictatorship and the military government. He was repeatedly detained by several leaders in Sudan, including Nimeiry and Bashir, and spent a total of 17 years in prison. He died at his home in Omdurman in 2018 at the age of 66.

The fall of Bashir and return of dissidents

In 2019, Sudanese citizens, protesting against soaring living costs, forced the military to overthrow Bashir’s government. During this time, protesters used the unifying power of music to usher in change. Several dissident musicians returned from exile to celebrate the fall of Bashir’s rule. For the first time in decades, several musicians held concerts urging young people to shape their destiny.

The collapse of Bashir’s hardline government had offered a glimmer of hope for a more free and vibrant cultural space. But in October 2021 army chief Gen Abdel Fattah al-Burhan led a coup that removed from power the country’s transitional government. On 15 April 2023, Sudan descended into another civil war in a conflict between rival factions of the military government, once more bringing the country’s cultural activities to a halt.

This article was written by Moses Abeka and originally published on the Music In Africa website on 18 of March 2024. It is republished here under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercialCC BY-NC licence.