Madame Wu Spotlights Control in Cicada Sunlight

Returning to the scene with the title track from her forthcoming 2025 album, Sydney/Eora hip-hop artist Madame Wu is offering her most poignant work yet in Cicada Sunlight. Wu is no stranger to sharp lyricism and courageous activism, and as she so often does, marries art and advocacy as she embarks into the deeply uncomfortable truth of coercive control through an authentically pulled-back lens.

Produced by Riverkid and featuring long-time collaborator Elise Graham, Cicada Sunlight is dually grim and ethereal, an otherwise heavy meditation on friendship, agency, and consistency. Wu wrote the song in the shadows of the quickening torch of a close friend who got caught in a controlling relationship. Her verses slice through with surgical precision, a delicate marriage of poetic metaphor and lived experience, with Graham acting as a soulful presence and striking counterweight in addition to the emotional heft of the song. 

Energetically, the single hums in a subtle yet powerful cadence and with produced atmosphere, conjures the sweltering Australian summertime, of which Wu narrates as the cicada's hum dampens a quiet suffering. Wu embraces both whispering and thunderous volume as she serves the essence of speaking up against oppressive silence.

Having previously collaborated with the likes of Radical Son and having supported De La Soul, Wu has experience when it comes to taking the stage. Here, she shows how her true strength lies in the idea that vulnerability can also be a form of power. Cicada Sunlight is not just a song but a challenge, a connection, and a reminder that hip-hop still can be a no-holds-barred platform for truth.

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