Luna Red Honours MMIWG2S+ With “The Land Remembers”

Listen To The Tunes, And Get All The Assets HERE

Afro-Indigenous R&B/Soul artist Luna Red releases her powerful new single “The Land Remembers” on September 30, the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation. Born and raised in Toronto and now based in Bear River First Nation in Mi’kma’ki, Nova Scotia, Luna (Teineisha Richards) wrote the song after relocating to her Indigenous community and beginning the process of reconnecting with the land, her ancestors and her Mi’kmaq identity. She later dedicated the song to Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women, Girls, Two-Spirit and gender-diverse people (MMIWG2S). At its heart is the line, “The land remembers her, even when they don’t," the idea that even when someone’s story, presence or history has been overlooked or erased, they still mattered. “People may forget, histories can be disrupted and generations can become disconnected, but the land remains,” Luna says. “To me, the land holds memory.”

That reconnection has been deeply personal and spiritual. “I feel that my ancestors walk with me and guide me, and sometimes I feel the land speaking to me through the wind,” Luna explains. As an Afro-Indigenous woman, returning to her Mi’kmaq community also brought new questions around belonging, representation and the impact of colonization and intergenerational trauma. “In some ways, we are getting to know the land, our histories and ourselves again.” Throughout the song, Luna explores what can be carried across generationsm, not only trauma and displacement, but also healing, strength, knowledge and the courage to break cycles. The lyric “a woman reborn” reflects both her own experience of starting again and the possibility of deciding what the next generation will inherit.

Ultimately, Luna doesn’t want “The Land Remembers” to leave listeners only with grief. “I want people to feel remembered, grounded, powerful and free,” she says. “I want Indigenous and Afro-Indigenous people, particularly women, to walk with their heads held high, knowing there is strength in where they come from while recognizing that they still have the power to decide where they’re going.” The single is the latest glimpse of Luna Red’s forthcoming six-song EP, Still Becoming, created with JUNO Award-winning songwriter/producer Corey Le Rue and Adrian Morris of Neon Dreams, and exploring identity, motherhood, self-love, cultural memory, ancestry, resilience and belonging.