Nashville-based singer-songwriter Nanseera releases her new single ‘Poison Rain’ on 24th July 2026, a stark, gothic folk track written in direct response to the US Supreme Court’s ruling to significantly weaken the Voting Rights Act.
Born in London and raised across Uganda, Ethiopia and the United States, Nanseera brings an old soul and poignant lyricism shaped by a lifetime of movement and adjustment. ‘Poison Rain’ channels that global perspective into pointed political commentary, pairing an apocalyptic yet hopeful tone with the intimacy of what she calls “back porch gothic”: a sound built on acoustic guitar, dobro, banjo, upright bass, drumset and voice.
Nanseera wrote the track after weeks of trying and failing to put the ruling into words. The breakthrough came during a solo session at the Song Suffragettes House on Music Row in Nashville, where the song finally came together in one sitting. She recorded it soon after in a friend’s home studio across three sessions, the fastest turnaround of any release in her catalogue.
“This change isn’t getting the media attention it merits, especially given how central the Voting Rights Act was to the Civil Rights Movement,” Nanseera says. “We do not yet live in a racism free world, and our systems need to reflect that. Without protections in place to compensate for our learned biases, we are sure to repeat the mistakes of the past.”
Drawing comparison to artists such as Rhiannon Giddens, Jesse Welles, Gillian Welch, Allison Russell and Joy Oladokun, Nanseera continues to build on a growing catalogue that has already earned her multiple New Music Friday placements across Spotify Africa’s Uganda, Kenya and South Africa playlists, alongside three podcast interviews.
‘Poison Rain’ will be supported by a visualiser and a run of East Coast dates, including Chelsea Table and Stage in New York on 14th August, a house show in Baltimore on 21st August, the Bluebird Cafe Songwriter Series in Nashville on 23rd August, The Basement’s New Faces Night on 25th August, and a house show in Bowling Green, Kentucky on 30th August, with West Coast dates to follow in October.
A second single and full album are set to follow later this year.
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Quote relating to the single:
“Poison Rain was written in response to the US Supreme Court’s recent decision to significantly weaken the Voting Rights Act that is an anti-discriminatory act intended to protect the voting rights of marginalized groups, particularly racially marginalized groups. I read an article that referenced a Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg dissent where she said, throwing out anti-discrimination laws that are working is like “throwing away your umbrella in a rainstorm because you are not getting wet.” – Nanseera