Corinne Bailey Rae is back with the second single from her forthcoming fourth studio album, Black Rainbows, called “Peach Velvet Sky.” Written and produced by Bailey Rae with S.J. Brown, the song’s emotional gravitas draws on the life and writings of Harriet Jacobs and offers a reflective, deep track about confinement, endurance, freedom, and the power of looking beyond your immediate surroundings.
“Peach Velvet Sky” is a tribute to Jacobs’ story, drawing on a particularly poignant detail from Jacobs’ 1861 autobiography, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl. Jacobs spent seven years hiding in the crawl space above her free grandmother’s storeroom, making a tiny opening so she could glimpse the outside world, including her children at play nearby. That small connection to the world outside her imprisonment is the emotional foundation of Bailey Rae’s new song.
What makes “Peach Velvet Sky” so interesting is how it connects a plainly small image to something larger. The track is charged with emotional growth, the tension between a brief flash of sunset and the ultimate taste of freedom. With “Peach Velvet Sky,” Bailey Rae continues to shape the world of Black Rainbows through history, memory, and human endurance.
Bailey Rae’s new connection to Jacobs’ story adds personal context to the song’s inspiration. As an adult and mother, she returned to the autobiography. She encountered Jacobs’ courage and resilience from a different angle, while facing once more the cruelty and injustice chronicled in her life.
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