On Sept. 30, acclaimed singer and songwriter Raye Zargoza released her song “Red” in the hopes of increasing the protection of Indigenous women. Her new LP “Woman in Color,” produced by Tucker Martine, releases Oct. 23 by Rebel River Records.
“Red” is an “impassioned call for increased awareness and protection of Murdered and Missing Indigenous Women,” according to Lucky Bird Media. The song was released one week after Congress passed Savanna’s Act on Sept. 21, which directs the Department of Justice to review, revise and develop law enforcement protocols for missing and murdered Native Americans.
When talking about the inspiration for her song, Zargoza said, “I was attending an event in Winnipeg, Manitoba when someone told me ‘Don’t go walking alone at night, they’ve been finding Native women in the Red River.’ The comment made a shiver go through my spine. I knew that the MMIW [Murdered and Missing Indigenous Women] crisis was rampant throughout North America, but that night I dug deeper into the stories of those who went missing on Highway 16 and discovered how impossible it is to find reliable information. This song is a call for people to acknowledge this horrific reality and fight for the protection of Indigenous women. Read their stories. Know their names.”
The song is carried by Zargoza’s beautiful vocals and a haunting piano melody full of pain, warning and desperation to stop the killing of Native Americans. Interwoven with this horrific reality, however, is a quiet power, fearlessness and refusal to stay silent. As Zargoza softly sings, “Don’t go out without your brother” and “They’ve been finding your sisters in the Red River,” she pauses on the word red to allow a hollow echo to carry the heavy weight of the word’s meaning. While this gentle pulse is not found in her previous work, the additional reverberation is strangely appropriate for the song’s thematic and symbolic overtones.
Zargoza released her debut EP “Heroine” in 2015. In 2016, she garnered national attention with her song “In the River,” which protested the Dakota Access Pipeline. The accompanying music video included facts about Standing Rock and received 100,000 views overnight. The song was awarded the Global Music Awards’ 2017 Heretic Award for Protest/Activist Music and the Honesty Oscars’ award for Best Song.
Zargoza went on to release her debut album “Fight For You” in 2017. Her songs relate to social justice and her experiences as a woman of color. In 2020, she released three more singles—“Fight Like a Girl,” “The It Girl” and “They Say.”
As a first-generation Japanese-American on her mother’s side and Indigenous on her father’s side, Zargoza brings perspective, talent and intimacy to her music. Zargoza once said in a 2018 interview, “I see myself as an artist. A lot of times, I get labeled as a political artist, a protest songwriter, etc. To me, I write for who I am.”
