Alex wondered if Asma could compose a new spoken word piece for Veiled Reality, but in exploring Asma's Belongings – a collection of poetry depicting her life as a British Sudanese woman – found Kandaka could be a wonderful companion to the story of Veiled Reality.
Amongst the stories of migration, mental health, racism and sport in Belongings, Kandaka's themes of sisterhood and connection across a diversity of women, spoke to our hopes for Veiled Reality - we've considered it could be a soundtrack to a teaser or trailer for our story, perhaps even dialogue uttered by the Veil itself as an expression of the totality of women's experiences.
We took a recording of Asma's voice from a TEDx talk and used it to train Eleven Labs' Voicelab and generate an AI spoken word performance, which you can hear above.
We'd toyed with Asma as the voice of The Veil in Veiled Reality and Voicelab allowed us to hear what a simulated Asma might sound like!
They call us The Queens.
Reina, Königin and Kandakas.
Derived from earth.
Nurturers and carers.
We come in all shades,
And hair textures.
Some of us carefully fold fabrics over our heads.
Divine.
Independent.
And magnificent.
We belong to different nations and tribes.
Our tongues are accustomed to different spices.
And give off unique aromas of language.
Our bodies occupy different spaces.
We are skateboarders, designers, singers.
Poets, athletes, artists and dancers.
Life is created within us.
We are fighters.
We are the revolution.
We are the movement.
We are sisterhood.
In one with the universe.
We feel its murmurs.
Shed tears of joy and pain.
We are sacred.
We are women.
No woman.
No life.