Adia Victoria - South Gotta Change

photo by Joshua Asante
written by Janice Headley

'Cause I love you, I won't leave you
Won't let you slip away
Come what may
We're gonna find a way

Nashville-based artist Adia Victoria takes an introspective look at her city on her latest single, "South Gotta Change." The song, executive produced by the legendary T Bone Burnett, is not only a love letter to her town, but a plea for change. On Twitter, she declared, "this isn’t a song about hope, this is a howl for change." She continues in a press statement:

In 2020 I have watched as the world became irreversibly altered. The upheaval COVID-19 caused has allowed for a sacred pause in our daily life.

During this lapse we lost Congressman John Lewis. In the days following his death I pondered the work he accomplished and the work left to us who remain.

"South Gotta Change" is a prayer, an affirmation, and a battle cry all at once. It is a promise to engage in the kind of ‘good trouble’ John Lewis understood necessary to form a more perfect union.

No other place embodies the American experiment with the precision of the South. It is home to both unspeakable horror and unshakable faith. It is up to us, those who are blessed enough to be Southern, to take up the mantle Brother Lewis left us. As the old saying goes, “As the South goes, so goes the nation.”