Hey Adrielle, thanks for taking the time to talk to us today. Could you tell us a little known fact about yourself?
I grew up all over the Southwest: Arizona, Northern and Southern California, and a few years in New Mexico. I never had a stable sense of home. I was separated from my older brother as a child and raised as an only child inside a turbulent and abusive environment. The family I did meet intermittently had grown up in the Deep South in the 50s and 60s, in Missouri, and the racism they endured became an inherited trauma that shaped how I understood the world.
Because I moved so much, I learned early how to build belonging out of imagination. I had friends from many cultural backgrounds, but I went to predominantly white schools and constantly navigated the silent barriers placed around kids who are othered. That tension shaped my storytelling and my need to create my own continuity when the real one kept shifting.
Your new album, Freeze, tackles major social justice issues. What motivated you to write a record with such emotional, historical, and political scope?
Freeze was born out of living through six years where every headline felt like a turning point, from the 2020 BLM protests to the 2026 ICE raids. I kept seeing the same cycles repeat: fear, resistance, erasure, survival, hope. I did not want to write topical songs. I wanted to write a cycle that shows how personal and political memory braid together. The scope was not a stylistic choice. It was a responsibility.
Away from global events, what personal meaning does the title Freeze have to you?
Freeze is the moment where humanity shows its pulse. In psychology, we talk about fight, flight, and freeze. I spent my childhood in flight and freeze. I was a teen runaway. I was physically abused at home, assaulted in foster care, and taught to grit my teeth and take it. I learned not to talk back, not to resist, not to fight.
In adulthood, through music and through finding my voice again in New York, I learned. I learned to shout. I learned to stand up for myself and for others. Freeze is my way of examining the moments where we are forced to choose: do we surrender, do we stay paralyzed in fear, or do we carve a different path.
And in a time where AI and algorithms are flooding the creative sphere, Freeze is also a reminder that machines can imitate patterns, but they cannot replicate the human experience. This album was penned from the pulse of humanity. It is a Cold War at home, and I am choosing to fight.
There is a lot of genre blending in the album. Do the different sounds relate to certain topics or feelings?
The genre blending is intentional. The folk and Americana elements root the album in American storytelling traditions. The alt pop and synth textures create the cold, metallic atmosphere that mirrors the political tension of the last six years.
The hip hop and R&B elements are just as essential. They connect directly to Black culture, poetic flow, and the rhythmic storytelling that shaped me. Black artists are too often pigeonholed into a single aesthetic or sound, but we are not a monolith. Our experiences have different colors and depths, so the music I use to tell our stories should too.
Freeze uses genre the way a painter uses color. Each track has its own emotional climate, and the sound follows the weather of the story.
Do you think being an independent artist has given you greater freedom to write about social justice and experiment with your style?
Absolutely. I do not have to soften the edges or dilute the message. I can write about ICE raids, police violence, generational trauma, and survival without someone asking me to make it more universal or less heavy. Independence also means I can experiment sonically and follow the story instead of a marketing plan. The freedom is the point.
What do you hope listeners take away from these songs?
I hope listeners feel seen, especially those who have lived through the same cycles of fear, resilience, and reinvention. I hope they recognize that their personal story is part of a larger one and that none of us are isolated in these struggles. I hope the record gives people language for things they have felt but never said out loud.
What is next for the project?
Next for Freeze is entering the album into FYC Grammy submissions and submitting it for the Pulitzer Prize for Music. It would be groundbreaking for an independent artist to break through the gatekeepers and be recognized for artistic excellence with a fully human made project. I am also expanding Freeze into a larger multimedia cycle with visual works, performance pieces, and companion compositions that deepen the political and emotional arc. The story is still evolving.
Follow Adrielle Bow Belle on Instagram.
PURPLE MELON 