(TW: self-harm, eating disorder)

Assata Perkins didn’t utter a sound for the first two years of her life.

As Sa-Roc though, she’s made up for that and then some, admitting that she’s got no problem using her words these days.

“I try to fit as many words into a bar as possible in order to express that. I feel like I’m fighting against time.”

She may have lots to say, but it’s WHAT she says that’s especially meaningful. Sa-Roc’s music draws from her own life experiences as a former cutter, a sharecropper’s daughter, a pupil in African cultural schools, a Howard University biology drop-out, and a health and wellness specialist. And she conveys all of that with an impressive dexterity, rapping at nearly Twista-level speeds, and then singing between her bars like a hip-hop angel.

You’ll discover how powerfully her background and skills bring Sa-Roc’s music to life in the gorgeously shot return-to-nature, “Forever.”

Strolling through a rocky landscape, Sa-Roc stuns in red clothes draped in African and Native American jewelry, strong but vulnerable in her solitude. It’s her expression of Tupac’s “rose that grew from concrete”: the “idea that you can blossom out of seemingly insurmountable circumstances, that our journey and growth through the toughest of environments can be invaluable to who we become.” Between shots of the jagged cliffs, Sa-Roc exposes her own scars, shares a variety of global religions and spiritual practices, and finds value in skin that holds trauma, literally drenching herself and other Black women in gold and along the way.

All that drip and the chorus are actually inspired by a sweet memory of Sa-Roc’s mom. Before she’d send her little natural-haired girl to school where she’d stand out amongst all the silky strands, they’d sing Earth, Wind, and Fire’s “Shining Star” in front of the mirror.

Now that quiet little girl is one.

𝗛𝗘𝗔𝗥 𝗦𝗢𝗨𝗡𝗗 𝗜𝗡 𝗖𝗢𝗟𝗢𝗥 𝟮𝟬𝟮𝟭 | 𝗪𝗔𝗧𝗖𝗛 𝗦𝗢𝗨𝗡𝗗 𝗜𝗡 𝗖𝗢𝗟𝗢𝗥 𝟮𝟬𝟮𝟭