A new music video came out from singer Rayana Jay. Notice anyone familiar in the video? That's PSAL Sprint Champ Toshel Goffe, alongside many of her Paul Robeson Track teammates. The Lady Eagles teamed up with "The Undefeated," the premier platform for exploring the intersections of race, sports and culture, to create the piece. The song, also titled "Undefeated," explores what it means to be a black female athlete in today's climate. The video also includes numerous other athletic disciplines, include swimming, tennis, and gymnastics, celebrating their sport's respective heroes.
You can check out the full video above, as well as the description of the movement behind the music below.
Find out more about the music video, and explore "The Undefeated" website at http://theundefeated.com/
The Undefeated and Disney Music Group released a single by artist Rayana Jay
Friday titled "Undefeated," an anthem celebrating the resilience of
black female athletes who face opponents on the courts, the playing
fields and the track as they battle stereotypes and the weight of racial
history.
Published by Hollywood Records, "Undefeated" features an all-female writing and production crew, including Jay, songwriter Blush and producer Trak Girl. The single was recorded at the San Francisco-based Women's Audio Mission, the only professional recording studio in the world built and run entirely by women. The single is available for download on iTunes, to stream on Apple Music and to stream on Spotify.
"Undefeated" is an extension of a joint project between The Undefeated and the Morgan State University School of Global Journalism and Communication. Commissioned by The Undefeated, Morgan State produced an academic study entitled "Beating Opponents, Battling Belittlement: How African-American Female Athletes Use Community to Navigate Negative Images" that examined the historical portrayal and imagery of black female athletes across sports from 1900 to the present.
The Morgan State study cites examples such as late sprinter Florence Griffith-Joyner, who was celebrated for her world-record speed, makeup and fashion style. In contrast to Griffith-Joyner is the backdrop of a culture that, as in the case of nationally syndicated radio host Don Imus in 2007, could call black female student-athletes "nappy-headed hos."
"Beating opponents, battling belittlement" finds that historical and cultural factors continue to have outsize influence on the lives of black female athletes. The paradox, it concludes, is "that as African-American women athletes focus on staving off stereotypical images of being masculine, they run the risk of becoming caricatured images if their emphasis on femininity overshadows their athletic accomplishments."
Besides the song and the academic study, the project includes conversations with black women about their daily lives in athletics, work from visual artists looking at their struggles and triumphs, a timeline of black women in sports and "letters" from Olympic athletes Claressa Shields, Simone Manuel and Tori Bowie. For a complete menu, click here.
