An ambitious new compilation, Transa, will collect music from Sade, Sam Smith, Jeff Tweedy, Laura Jane Grace, and more than 100 other artists to celebrate trans and nonbinary people. The album, which features nearly 50 tracks and runs nearly three-and-a-half hours, will come out Nov. 22 via the Red Hot Organization.
The first single is Lauren Auder’s interpretation of Prince’s “I Would Die 4 U,” a recording that features two artists who recorded the original song with Prince, the Revolution’s Wendy and Lisa. Where the original was more synth-pop focused, the Transa version sounds more organic thanks to pulsing piano and a quieter rendition. Yet Prince’s lyrics speak louder when Auder, who is trans, sings them: “I’m not a woman, I’m not a man/I am something that you’ll never understand.” Wendy and Lisa sing backup vocals and help give the song its signature feel.
“The lyrics to ‘I Would Die 4 U’ feel so potent and open-ended, up for interpretation, but an unconditional message of holding and support shines through,” Auder said in a statement. “Getting Wendy and Lisa who sang on the original to accompany me through this version has been one of the proudest moments in my musical career and am so glad to be sharing this via Red Hot.”
“It’s hard to impress us with a cover of a Prince song, especially a personal favorite of ours like, ‘I Would Die 4 U,’ but Lauren’s voice and vibey sensibilities spoke to us,” Wendy and Lisa said. “We were happy to lend whatever we could to the project and to Lauren to make the song something special. We’d venture to say that Prince might’ve enjoyed some of the innovation of this version of the song.”
The song features in the final “chapter” of Transa, which Red Hot’s producers, Dust Reid and Massima Bell, structured into eight sections, a nod to the original eight-stripe rainbow pride flag that represents stages of understanding humanity. The final phase, which features “I Would Die 4 U,” is about reinvention. Other stages include survival, grief, acceptance, and liberation.
Sade contributed “Young Lion,” a message of acceptance to her trans son Izaak. Moses Sumney covered the late trans electronic producer Sophie’s “Is It Cold in the Water?” L’Rain covered Anohni’s “People Are Small/Rapture” and included audio from the Trans Oral History Project.
Reid and Bell, who is trans, came up with the idea for Transa three years ago after they collaborated on a short film in upstate New York and realized they had a shared love of the music of Beverly Glenn-Copeland, who is trans. They conceived of Transa after learning of Sophie’s death in January 2021.
“We started talking about all the gifts that trans artists have been giving to the world and wanted to create a Red Hot project that centered and celebrated those gifts,” Reid, who previously helmed Red Hot’s Arthur Russell tribute album, said in a statement. “We hoped to create a narrative that positions trans and non-binary people as leaders in our society insofaras the deep inner work they do to affirm who they are in our current climate. We felt this is something everybody should do. Whether you identify as trans or nonbinary or otherwise, if you took the time to explore your gender, get in touch with the feeling side of yourself, maybe we would have a future oriented around values of community, collaboration, care, and healing.”
“Living under the ongoing Western binary system, trans people reveal maps of possibility for everyone,” Bell said. “It’s something that we can all learn from – expanding the possibility of human life.”
As Reid and Bell worked on Transa, approaching artists to contribute, several U.S. states have limited the rights of trans people. These aggressions strengthened the resolve of Reid, Bell, and the contributing artists to create something meaningful.
“When we were putting together [1990’s] Red Hot and Blue, a generation of people were upset by homophobia and AIDS, and needed a lightning rod to put their energy into,” Red Hot founder John Carlin said in a statement. “I’m hoping that’s what Transa is – that there’s a large group of people who are appalled by transphobia and the way right-wing politicians are using it to anger their base. And they’ll stand up and focus. They’ll say, ‘I want to push on the other side. There are more of us than there are of them.’”
Transa track list:
Chapter I – Womb of the Soul
1. “Midnight Moon Pool,” Mary Lattimore, Laraaji, MIZU, and Jamal Shakeryan
2. “You Don’t Know Me,” Devendra Banhart, Blake Mills, and Beverly Glenn-Copeland
3. “How Sweet I Roamed,” Jeff Tweedy and Claire Rousay
4. “Same Train,” Heart Shaped and Christian Lee Hutson
Chapter II – Survival
5. “Star,” Ana Roxanne and Nsámbu Za Suékama
6. “Please Tell Me,” Lightning Bug
7. “Make ’em Laugh,” Benét and Faye Webster
8. “Get Me Away from Here, I’m Dying,” Julien Baker and Calvin Lauber (feat. Soak, Quinn Christopherson)
9. “Rumblin’,” Soft Rōnin (feat. Frankie Cosmos)
10. “Deeper Understanding,” Hand Habits (feat. Bill Callahan)
Chapter III – Dark Night
11. “Under the Shadow of Another Moon,” Hunter Schafer and Cole Pulice
12. “Blush,” Grouper and Lucy Liyou
13. “Is It Cold in the Water?” Moses Sumney
14. “Know Who You Are at Every Age,” Anajah and Gary Gunn
15. “Is It Over Now?” Niecy Blues (feat. Joy Guidry)
Chapter IV – Awakening
16. “Something Is Happening and I May Not Fully Understand But I’m Happy to Stand for the Understanding,” André 3000
17. “Come Back Different,” Nina Keith (feat. Julie Byrne, Taryn Blake Miller)
18. “Song to the Siren,” Rachika Nayar (feat. Julianna Barwick, Cassandra Croft)
19. “Love Hymn,” Arthur Baker (feat. Pharoah Sanders)
20. “People Are Small / Rapture,” L’Rain and Voices from the NYC Trans Oral History Project
Chapter V – Grief
21. “We’ve Been Through So Much,” Jlin and Moor Mother
22. “My Name,” Kara Jackson, Ahya Simone, and Dave Longstreth
23. “Point of Disgust,” Perfume Genius and Alan Sparhawk (Low)
24. “In Another Life,” Lomelda and More Eaze
25. “Pink Ponies,” Teddy Geiger and Yaeji
26. “A Survivor’s Guilt,” Yaya Bey
Chapter VI – Acceptance
27. “Just Last Night,” Helado Negro and Eileen Myles
28. “Feel So Different,” Ezra Furman and Sharon Van Etten
29. “Mourning Dove,” Gia Margaret
30. “Feel Better,” Adrianne Lenker
31. “Any Other Way,” Allison Russell and Ahya Simone
32. “Down Where the Valleys Are Low,” Asher White, Eli Winter, and Caroline Rose
33. “TM,” Fleet Foxes, Cole Pulice, and Lynn Avery
34. “Querube,” AV María, Sky, and Belina Rose
Chapter VII – Liberation
35. “Within Without,” Green-House, and Kelela
36. “Aaron,” Cassandra Jenkins, Bloomsday, and Babehoven
36. “Young Lion,” Sade Adu
38. “You Make Me Feel (Mighty Real) ,” Moses Sumney, Lyra Pramuk, and Sam Smith
39. “Many Ways,” Clarity (feat. Clairo)
40. “I Feel Free,” Sparkle Division (feat. Pepper MaShay)
Chapter VIII – Reinvention
41. “Get Free,” Nico Georis and KB Brookins
42. “Wolf Like Me,” Bartees Strange, Anjimile, and Kara Jackson
43. “Surrender Your Gender,” Laura Jane Grace (feat. Lee Ranaldo, Jayne County, Kathi Wilcox, Jay Dee Daugherty, Am Taylor)
44. “I Would Die 4. “U,” Lauren Auder and Wendy & Lisa of the Revolution
45. “Always,” Time Wharp and Elizabeth & Beverly Glenn-Copeland
46. “Ever New,” Sam Smith and Beverly Glenn-Copeland
