Premiere: LoRen Drops Powerful Single, “Black Women,” Announces New EP ‘Pardon Me’

In a rapture of soulful strings, a commanding beat, and an intoxicating swirl of vocals, singer-songwriter LoRen delivers her soul-stirring new single “Black Women.”

“Black Women” was born from a poem that she “never planned on sharing,” the Pittsburgh-based artist explained in the below Instagram post. She began writing the song toward the end of her pregnancy in 2020. It was a time when racial bias, and the realities surrounding Black maternal health, revealed themselves. The more she educated herself on the statistics, the more unsettled she became.

Black women ain’t supposed to be afraid, LoRen opens the song with a haunting lilt as she pulls back the veil on some hard truths. With this release and with more to come, she says she is no longer holding her tongue.

“In public, I am often over-accommodating and reserved,” the artist said of her song. “Enduring pain in silence, and tirelessly carrying the torch of society’s view of my ancestor’s unhuman strength, this song is that bold inner perspective that I could no longer keep to myself. This is my interpretation of walking in the freedom of Nina Simone—I am responding to the suffrage that has been ‘in plain sight’ for so long.”

Watch snippets of the making of “Black Women” below.

The new release is the lead single off of her forthcoming four-song EP, Pardon Me. “On these four songs, I’m declaring that I will no longer hold my tongue,” she said of the upcoming project which is set to drop on March 24.

Pardon Me will showcase LoRen’s unique sound—a style that mixed her gospel roots with her varied influences—and her refreshing authenticity. The EP is simply the groundwork being laid for a full-length album, one that will continue to battle dated, destructive perspectives with love and strength.

Listen to LoRen’s powerful new single, “Black Women,” below.

Photo by Jenna Wallace / Clarion Call Media