Samantha Lindo shares a tale of the “Little Songbird”

Bristol-based new wave jazz and retro-pop singer-songwriter Samantha Lindo is a multi-faceted artist whose rich music-filled childhood influenced her style. Soaking in the broad tastes from her father and grandfather's vinyl collection of songs ranging from afrobeat, dub, R&B and more, Samantha slowly built her musical taste buds with the greatest vocalists and later complemented it with some soul and indie pop of contemporary artists like Michael Kiwanuka, Tom Misch, and more. Known for her penchant for touching on real-time issues from climate change, and racial justice to mental health and feminism, Samantha brings something refreshing and thought-provoking to the forefront and her latest single "Little Songbird" is another notch on her belt.

Inspired by her great uncle who moved from Jamaica to Canada in the 70s alongside thousands of middle-class Jamaicans fleeing political and economic upheaval after independence from Britain rule. It narrates the emotional realities of migration and formative relationships that span continents. Over the soothing and warm production, Samantha delivers a soul-gripping performance underpinned by expressive melodic runs and heartfelt lyrics that dwell on remembering and bringing forth the capacity to create communities of solidarity, counterculture, and resistance in the current climate of radical individualism.

Always a forerunner, she set up Girls, Girls, Girls, a London-based all-female arts collective, with The Orchid project, a charity campaigning to end Female Genital Cutting, Lindo embarked on her first UK tour with co-founder Eliza Shaddad, collaborating with female artists all over the country including London’s Union Chapel. As well as being celebrated in an interview in Oh Comely magazine’s issue on sisterhood, the pair were honoured to be chosen to perform in the Museum of London's ‘Votes for Women’ exhibition in 2018, singing the suffragette anthem in celebration of 100 years of the vote. She also appeared in The Guardian’s photographic essay last year, telling the story of being arrested for standing in solidarity with an indigenous Amazonian woman protesting to save her home, which inspired her single, "Lips."