Legacy! Legacy!, a work that honored Blackness, Black womanhood, and her native Chicago at an inflection point marked by social upheaval and protests against police brutality. With what she describes as her most personal album yet, she tackles her past relationships head-on — what she's lost from them, and what she's gained.
Looking through the many songs and journal entries she'd written over the course of several months during the pandemic, Woods discovered certain themes emerging, themes that sessions with her therapist and astrologers reinforced. She eventually opened up about it to L.A. musician Chris McClenney , whom she'd enlisted to executive-produce her next record with her.
As the bond disintegrates, the lines blur. Closure doesn't always come. But Woods insists we can have closure in how we choose to tell the story. Elaborating on the inspiration behind "Wolfsheep," she says, "I think I was noticing a shift in myself with that particular relationship. I was writing about how I didn't want to feel like just the victim.
Woods chose to be vulnerable, for her idols and ancestors but also for herself. "There's a kind of shedding with this that feels important to growing as an artist," she says. "There's lots of Toni Morrison and Bell Hooks and Nikki Giovanni on this album — it's in me, so it's still there. But I'm letting myself be at the forefront."