- Music
- 11 Nov 09
Mary J. Blige and Santigold are also supporting the project.
Sinéad O’Connor has re-recorded her 1997 song ‘This Is To Mother You’ in an effort to raise awareness and funds for the Girls Education & Mentoring Services (GEMS).
Produced by Doc McKinney and Ali Shaheed from A Tribe Called Quest, the track will have extra vocals added to it this month by Mary J. Blige and Santigold.
The American organisation works with vulnerable children who’ve been forced into prostitution.
“GEMS provides safe homes for
them, arranges counselling to help them take control of their
traumatic experiences and assists them with education and training
opportunities,” O’Connor explains. “It also provides programmes to enable law
enforcement people to reach a greater understanding of the victims of
child trafficking.
“I myself am a survivor, not of sex trafficking but of severe child abuse,” she continues. “So this is obviously a subject that I can identify with when it comes to young girls trying to get out of bad situations and make a good life for themselves. To me, the song was a part of me talking to me.”
Originally featured on the Gospel Oak album, ‘This Is To Mother You’ receives its digital release on December 2.
In addition, Sinéad has been working on her own album, which she hopes to have “made and mixed by the end of this year and out in spring 2010. Afterwards I may be out on tour with a full band doing electric and acoustic stuff. I’m also going through some recordings from the live sets I’ve been doing during the summer. I’ll probably have a couple of those up on the website (www.sinead-oconnor.com) for streaming and/or download over the next couple of weeks.”