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{"id":31157,"date":"2020-01-23T15:15:35","date_gmt":"2020-01-23T20:15:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.audiofemme.com\/?p=31157"},"modified":"2020-01-23T15:20:13","modified_gmt":"2020-01-23T20:20:13","slug":"playing-nashville-kyshona-armstrong-premieres-listen","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.audiofemme.com\/playing-nashville-kyshona-armstrong-premieres-listen\/","title":{"rendered":"PLAYING NASHVILLE: Kyshona Armstrong Premieres ‘Listen’"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\" — Photo by Hannah Miller<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\u201cWhy won\u2019t you listen?\u201d It\u2019s a simple question packed with dense meaning, and is the core message of Kyshona Armstrong\u2019s new song \u201cListen,\u201d premiering exclusively with *Audiofemme.<\/em> It’s the title track from her forthcoming LP,\u00a0set for release on February 28.<\/p>\n*
Co-written by Armstrong and Toronto-based singer-songwriter Emma Lee, \u201cListen\u201d was born out of a conversation between Armstrong and someone who\u2019d asked her opinion about a recent societal event, a conversation that became more like a debate. “Sometimes all people want is for you to hear them,\u201d Armstrong shares with Audiofemme.<\/em>“I noticed even with myself, I’ll ask someone a question and then I’m not even listening because I’m trying to figure out how I want to fix it; what can I say in response to it, rather than just hearing a person.”<\/p>\n
<\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Armstrong brought her observations into a writing session with Lee, the two building the track\u2019s instrumental before crafting the lyrics. Like spoken word poetry put to music, the song presents a series of questions that lead to the main point in the chorus that repeats, \u201cWhy won\u2019t you listen?\u201d She opens the song with a powerful question: \u201cWhy you gotta interrupt\/when I\u2019m not done talkin’?\u2019\u201d before proclaiming \u201cYeah, I know you want to help\/but you\u2019re deaf to the mission.\u201d For Armstrong, the latter notion delves into her personal frustration with those who are more interested in the \u201cgory pieces\u201d of her work – with such organizations as the Oasis Center, which supports at-risk youth, or teaching songwriting to women who are incarcerated at the Tennessee Prison for Women – than they are with the meaning behind it.<\/p>\n<p>\u201c’Deaf to the mission’ to me means you’re not even hearing the purpose behind what I’m doing,\u201d Armstrong explains, adding that she feels she can convey humanizing stories to her audience of the people she meets in places such as prisons and homeless shelters. “My mission is to be a voice and a vessel for those that feel lost, forgotten and silenced.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>In the music video, Armstrong captures the subtle tension of the song. She called on many of her family members and friends to help tell the story, pairing them up to have playful, yet effective arguments with one another. While their exchanges are muted, Armstrong reveals that to bring out that tension, the couples argued about a range of topics from what toppings to put on a pancake to her sister-in-law reprimanding her niece about her outfit. \u201cThey could feel that hum underneath while they were acting,” Armstrong describes of the atmosphere on set as the song was playing in the background. “This is what the song feels like – it’s just this tense moment. It’s about people and feelings.”<\/p>\n<p>For Armstrong, the idea of \u201clistening\u201d all boils down to empathy, which involves stepping into someone else\u2019s reality and trying to see the world from their point of view. She hopes that through the song, people will feel compelled to take action and engage in true listening. \u201cI think \u2018listen\u2019 is a more active thing than it sounds like. Listen to someone else’s story, then try to put yourself in their shoes and see how they might walk through the world and might feel in this moment – just pan out from your own world,\u201d she observes. “I hope people take a moment to really think about how can they listen more – or better.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\u201cWhy won\u2019t you listen?\u201d It\u2019s a simple question packed with dense meaning, and is the core message of Kyshona Armstrong\u2019s new song \u201cListen,\u201d premiering exclusively with Audiofemme. It’s the title track from her forthcoming LP,\u00a0set for release on February 28. Co-written by Armstrong and Toronto-based singer-songwriter Emma Lee, \u201cListen\u201d was born out of a conversation […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":103,"featured_media":31158,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[9113,567],"tags":[511,6769,988,9672,2274,4463],"acf":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.audiofemme.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/01\/KyshonaArmstrongListenfeatimg.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.audiofemme.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31157"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.audiofemme.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.audiofemme.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.audiofemme.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/103"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.audiofemme.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=31157"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.audiofemme.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31157\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":31169,"href":"https:\/\/www.audiofemme.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31157\/revisions\/31169"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.audiofemme.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/31158"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.audiofemme.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31157"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.audiofemme.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31157"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.audiofemme.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31157"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}