Some exciting news was released in the past couple of days, regarding an upcoming music album featuring over 100 artists and dedicated to transgender awareness.

Titled "Transa," the album is "three and a half hours of music, 46 songs divided among eight chapters." And it is a Red Hot project, an organization founded "in 1989 by Leigh Blake and John Carlin as a response to the devastation wrought by AIDS on a generation of New York artists and intellectuals."

"'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,” Red Hot Executive Director Dust Reid, who assembled Transa with artist Massima Bell, told Variety. 'We hoped to create a narrative that positions trans and nonbinary people as leaders in our society insofar as the deep inner work they do to affirm who they are in our current climate.'"

One of the big name contributors to this effort is Sade Adu, who you may best remember for her 1985 hit, "The Sweetest Taboo." Sade's participation in "Transa" comes as her tribute to her transgender son, Iazzk.

Among others on the album are Sam Smith, André 3000, and the duo, Wendy & Lisa, whose cover of Prince's “I Would Die 4 You” is to be the album's first single.

"Transa" will be released on November 22, 2024, right after Transgender Remembrance Day. It is available for pre-order on the Red Hot site right here: https://redhot.org/

--- Anni