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Meghan Kreidler is an acrobat \u2014 or at least she feels like one most days. \u201cI teeter back and forth between feeling very empowered and then just being totally thrown off by little things that happen in everyday life,” she says, “just behaviors that have been normalized by men, in particular, and how they talk to me and how they treat me.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
She’s speaking frankly about her song “Grown Ass Woman,” which appears on Vicious Kid<\/a><\/em>, her third studio album with her band Kiss The Tiger<\/a>. “The angel of death\/Wants me to draw another breath\/But angel won\u2019t you leave me alone,” she sings, her voice coated in raw vulnerability over a quivering and dusty country-time signature. The video for the surprisingly stripped-down performance debuts today on Audiofemme<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n “Grown Ass Woman,” and its tender climb to a thunderous vocal burst, speaks both personally and universally to experiences of womanhood. \u201cThere’s a lot of talk about feminism and female empowerment these days, and it feels like it’s very in style. That might make people think, \u2018Okay, we’ve arrived. Women are equal to men.\u2019 But in my experience, I still come up against moments in life, where I think, \u2018What the heck? I thought I was this person, but now I feel so weak and vulnerable.\u2019 I think I’m growing into a stronger, more nuanced person as I get older.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n With radical honesty, she reclaims her right to take up space. In another life, she may have simply swallowed micro-aggressions as an act of resignation, accepting the sting. But now, those moments seem to pop up more frequently, and she’s found herself “feeling a lot more hurt by them,” she confides, adding that she’s often “blindsided by those moments and not being able to respond back in the moment.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n The mid-album detour \u201cis another one of those songs that is kind of scary for me. It\u2019s a slow burn” she says. For a while, the singer-songwriter struggled with whether people would latch onto and appreciate its organic, subdued feel, but on a personal level, it’s opened the floodgates for her own needed transformation. “What I like about it is that it always forces me to face my fears and to tap into what makes me feel vulnerable. At the end of the day, when you’re able to grasp and own your vulnerability, that’s when your strength really shines through,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Back in April, Kiss the Tiger released a video illustrated and animated by Eleonore Dendy<\/a> for “I Miss You<\/a>.” Though very different from “Grown Ass Woman,” both videos frame visual storytelling “around a female experience,” a much-needed approach, particularly in the music industry. “We’ve tried to get women who are either featured in the video or who are working behind the scenes,” she says. The band enlists long-time friend and director Sha Cage<\/a> for the clip, showcasing Kreidler pouring out her heart on a stage at the Cedar Cultural Center<\/a> with glowing violet lights showering upon her shoulders. “I respect Sha very much as an artist. We couldn’t have done a music video for [this song] and not had a female director. That would have not made any sense,” she laughs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n