My journey towards self liberation | anaiis | TEDxLondonWomen

How many of us find that we can stand up for our friends, our neighbours or people we’ve never even met - but not for ourselves? As a child, the shock of moving between countries and the struggle to reconcile different aspects of her identity led anaiis to stop speaking altogether. The less noise you make, the lower the chance of getting into trouble - right? But as she grew older and started to witness injustice, she realised she would have to speak up. Looking to her mother and grandmother for guidance she saw a reflection of herself, women who had compromised themselves in the service of others. And so she turned to her art to help her to find self-acceptance and, in the process, self-liberation. A multi-talented singer and musician, anaiis has lived multiple lives. Moving from Toulouse, to Dublin, to Dakar, to California, to New York and finally to London, anaiis’s feeling of belonging everywhere and nowhere has added many colours to her creative palette. Her music explores narratives of blackness, but pu